


Earp Fiction Addiction Podcast Season 4

by DarkWiccan, Delayne, Laragh



Series: The Earp Fiction Addiction Podcast [5]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, Episode Transcript Included, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Podcast
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:06:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 144,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23633569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkWiccan/pseuds/DarkWiccan, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delayne/pseuds/Delayne, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laragh/pseuds/Laragh
Summary: We're back with yet another season of great fic to discuss and share!We'll discuss popular titles. Provide reviews and recommendations. And even interview authors. It's going to be #amazeballsThe Earp Fiction Addiction podcast. Discussing (almost) all things Wynonna Earp Fanfiction related.
Relationships: Jeremy Chetri/Robin, Waverly Earp/Nicole Haught, Wynonna Earp/Doc Holliday, Xavier Dolls/Wynonna Earp
Series: The Earp Fiction Addiction Podcast [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1111659
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	1. Hot Doc

**Author's Note:**

> Thunderation! We have somehow managed to convince the amazing Tim Rozon to join DW, Delayne and Laragh to chat about fic, writing comics, playing Doc Holliday, running two restaurants and even noodling on the guitar!
> 
> Welcome back, ya'll! It's Season Four!

[Click HERE to Listen!](http://efapodcast.com/hot-doc)

Thunderation! We have somehow managed to convince the amazing Tim Rozon to join DW, Delayne and Laragh to chat about fic, writing comics, playing Doc Holliday, running two restaurants and even noodling on the guitar!

Welcome back, ya'll! It's Season Four!

Read the Fics!

####  [Doc Versus The Twenty-First Century](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17643125) by [BaggerHeda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaggerHeda/pseuds/BaggerHeda)

####  [Second Verse](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1632727) by [Cards_Slash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash) (mind the tags!)

Transcript by ApproxTenCats

Ep 401: Hot Doc

[ph] – Indicates preceding word has been spelled phonetically

[sic] – Indicates preceding word has been transcribed verbatim

MUSIC : Write My Story by Olly Anna

ANNOUNCER GUY : You've tuned in to the  _ Earp Fiction Addiction _ , a fan podcast all about  _ Wynonna Earp _ fanfiction. Join our intrepid host DarkWiccan and Delayne as they dive deep into the sometimes sweet, sometimes spicy, and always varied world of fanfiction for the  _ Wynonna Earp _ fandom.

MUSIC : A Proper Story by Darren Korb

DARKWICCAN:  Thanks Announcer Guy and welcome everybody to a brand new fourth season of the  _ Earp Fiction Addiction _ , the podcast dedicated entirely to  _ Wynonna Earp _ fanfiction. I remain your host DarkWiccan and with me are my fantastic co-hosts. From here in the United States...

DELAYNE: Hi it’s Delayne.

DARKWICCAN: And from all the way over the pond in bonny Ireland...

LARAGH: Hey it’s Laragh.

DARKWICCAN: Well gosh it’s so good to hear your voices, I can’t even begin to tell you. 

DELAYNE: [laughs] No kidding.

DARKWICCAN: I have missed you guys so much, and now we’re all trapped in our homes so I can’t come see you.

DELAYNE: All the plans that we had made to perhaps see each other have so far been delayed.

DARKWICCAN: Delayed, not cancelled entirely, but at the very least delayed. Yes. Darn you Covid-19. You know who I feel really bad for? I feel really bad for Corona beer. Because even though their beer is literally the worst, [laughs] this is truly going to destroy them.

DELAYNE: Because corona just means crown in Spanish so...

DARKWICCAN: Right, because the virus looks like it’s wearing a whole bunch of little crowns, like I get the idea but seriously, the branding on this, I feel really bad for the beer. But let’s talk about other stuff that’s been going on. So before we wrapped up season three of the podcast we learnt that  _ Wynonna Earp _ had been given the green light to start production again and we were eagerly anticipating the beginning of that when we finished up season three of this show. Other things that happened, so okay you remember how in the last episode of the season when I was nine months pregnant I said that my goal was to pull a Melanie Scrofano and have my kid four days after the end of production? Well I beat Melanie Scrofano you guys.

ALL: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: I had my kid three days after the end of production.

DELAYNE: [clapping] Good job, congratulations, proud of you. Way to Scrofano that up.

DARKWICCAN: Right? So yes, as everyone who follows me on Twitter knows at this point I had a wee baby, a wee baby girl named  Éilis Rose. She’s doing spectacularly, she is the light of my life and the apple of my eye and all of those other sayings. She is adorable and super smart and the greatest baby ever and you can’t convince me otherwise.

ALL: [laughs]

LARAGH: We wouldn’t want to.

DELAYNE: Yeah, we agree, hard agree.

DARKWICCAN: So that has been quite an adventure so far and will continue to be for the rest of my life but I’m loving every second of it, even when I’m getting spat up on, haven’t gotten pooped on yet. I’m sure it will happen. I have gotten peed on, that was due to me not thinking when I was changing my kid out of her diaper to take a bath, I changed her out of her diaper and then I was just holding her to carry her over, I was literally turning to carry her to the bath, and then she started peeing all over me. “She’s peeing, she’s peeing,” I’m yelling at my wife Jen, “Jen she’s peeing, she’s peeing.” And Jen just laughed, laughed, laughed. I mean I was also laughing to be fair.

LARAGH: It sounds like fan fic material.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, totally. Pocket that away there Laragh for future use in one of your family fics.

LARAGH: You’re joking but I’m actually doing it.

ALL: [laughs]

DELAYNE: We didn’t think you were joking, we figured you were going to do it.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, yeah, I was not joking at all. So had a baby, so that happened. Let’s see, um, what’s been going on for you guys since we wrapped production on season three?

LARAGH: oh.

DELAYNE: uh.

DARKWICCAN: You’re like, “jeez Jen, how do we fricking top…”

LARAGH: I got a new rug.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Hey, nice, what style.

LARAGH: It's, um, you know, the style of art.

DARKWICCAN: It’s a style of art? Okay.

LARAGH: Yes, that’s about as much as I… it has [inaudible] and it is soft to put your feet on, like a rug.

DARKWICCAN: Nice, well that sounds wonderful, yeah.

LARAGH: Pretty much it.

DELAYNE: Uh… work.

DARKWICCAN: But you recently moved into a new place right?

DELAYNE: I would love to say that, because we were supposed to be there on friday, and we’re hoping we’re able to get the keys on monday. So, anyway I could vent about the many many issues that has been. But right now I am in my room in my apartment but everything has been disbanded so I’m not shoved into my plaid studio at the moment, so I’m out in the open, hopefully it sounds okay.

DARKWICCAN: I think you sound great. I’m just thrilled to hear both of your voices honestly.

DELAYNE: Right?

LARAGH: I know yeah.

DELAYNE: I mean it’s not like we don’t pretty much talk every day, with the texting, with the words.

DARKWICCAN: But not with our voices. It’s different, it’s a different thing, yeah yeah. But so it’s been a while, it’s been a minute, it’s been four months. Literally four months since we sat down to record so this is one of our longer hiatuses, I think. Our previous hiatus was only, what, a month and a half? Not even two months.

DELAYNE: I don’t know. You keep track of that stuff.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, but I mean, you guys…

LARAGH: And I think the show aired in that hiatus as well didn’t it? So there was stuff going on.

DARKWICCAN: It did. There was. So we thought okay we’re sitting down coming back after a pretty epic hiatus and we want to do something kind of, well to be redundant, epic. And we’ve interviewed Kat, we’ve interviewed Dom, we’ve interviewed Varun and Varun kind of put an idea in our heads with his interview in that he said you know it would be great to get Tim on. Now he pitched both him and Tim together and I think, yes that is something that will definitely be checked off the bucket list down the line, I just wanted to talk to the man himself, Doc Holliday by himself to start off. And you know, you never know until you ask, right? So I did my usual kind of thing, reaching out through the proper channels, always the proper channels, and seeing if there was some interest on Tim’s part, and yes! He agreed to come on the show! Even though we can’t actually talk to him about what the show’s about we can talk to him about characterisation and all the other fun stuff that we always talk to actors about. So we will be talking with Tim, that’s our premier surprise. Surprise everybody!

DELAYNE: [laughs]

LARAGH: Yay.

DELAYNE: Well, it’s kind of fun because I think Tim is like, he is the “earpiest Earp” but also he has like the dream of almost every fanfic writer has come true for him, he has participated in writing of the canon comic.

DARKWICCAN: Now, I’m glad you bring that up, he’s gotten to participate in the official comic. I don’t actually consider the comic to be canon.

DELAYNE: Oh yes, we’ve had this discussion before. Either way he’s working with original material.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, and it’s official, with IDW’s publishing label, it’s an official  _ Wynonna Earp _ comic.

DELAYNE: Yes.

DARKWICCAN: So yes he is definitely living the dream that way, because not only is he a huge comic book fan so there’s that, he’s also as you say the “earpiest Earp”, he truly is, I mean everybody on the show is supportive of their own show but Tim is like a super-fan for his own show. And it’s delightful to watch him get so excited about it, and how much love he puts into the character and the show and also the fandom. So yeah, you’re absolutely right Delayne, he is living that dream. So it’ll be great to talk to him about the writing process, writing these characters outside of the television series so that’s going to be great to talk to him about. But this is the _ Earp Fiction Addiction _ so we must discuss some Doc Holliday fanfiction before we can get to the interview and I think we’ve stretched this opening bit as much as we can that it only makes sense at this point to dive into the fics that we’re going to talk about. 

DELAYNE: Sounds great. I’ll let you go first.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, so we’re only talking about two Doc Holliday based works. Now the work that I’m talking about is technically a series of stories, but I’m just going to talk about the series as a whole instead of breaking it down into individual fics within that series. Okay so, something we’ve talked about very very briefly, like ships passing through the night on previous seasons, was that the most prevalent form of fanfiction is meant for, or written by, or catering to the queer dude. And that’s not true within this fandom but if you just look across fanfiction as an art in general, and the art form leaning more toward the rated M to Explicit style of writing and across many fandoms, it seems like what the term slash fiction is is really a major chunk of the percentage of fic in the world. Not in this fandom, this fandom is the exception, in this fandom it’s extremely rare, extremely rare. But it is a part of fanfiction culture and so we’re going to give it a couple of minutes on this show. So this series is called  _ Second Verse _ and it’s by the author Cards_Slash, that’s Cards underscore Slash. And it is a slash fiction series and it is centred on the ship of Doc Holliday and Bobo Del Rey which I’m going to possibly coin as the Hollirey ship. 

DELAYNE: [laughs] I have not heard that before, but it’s kind of fun. It actually sounds like a good name for a ship. If I ever get a boat I’m going to call it The Hollirey. People will have no idea what I’m referencing.

DARKWICCAN: I will. [laughs] So this is a series, the  _ Second Verse _ series currently has eight works in it, it is unfinished so that means that Cards_Slash is continuing to write pieces to add to it. Every single fic in this series is explicit. Every single fic is gay male, and you know what? Great. That is great. That means that the people who want to read this, who want to see these two characters in this scenario have the opportunity to read about these two characters in this scenario. We really don’t see that often in this fandom, this fandom is very often queer lady type or queer un-assigned individual, heavily leaning towards female/female pairings. You’ve got Wayhaught of course, you’ve got Wynhaught, or Wynaught as Melanie has demanded. You’ve got Wynaught, you’ve got Wynsita, you’ve got...

DELAYNE: Wyncedes and Wynsita.

DARKWICCAN: And much to Laragh’s absolute chagrin there’s the occasional Waverly/Rosita which doesn’t have an official name which is good.

LARAGH: It doesn’t deserve one.

ALL: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: But we really don’t see male pairings that often, we’re more likely to see a straight pairing of Wyndoc or Wyndolls than we are to see a pairing of Doc and another male character. So I’m calling this the Hollirey ship, watch somebody come at me saying, “it’s Deliday, goddamnit.”

LARAGH: Yeah, I’m sure someone will disagree because that’s what the internet is for.

DARKWICCAN: This is a slash pairing and every fic is explicit that means you’re gonna get in your face gay sex of the male persuasion, and because it’s Bobo it’s going to be rough. But it’s always consensual even when it’s slightly dubious in some cases, it’s one of those things like it’s questionably dubious, is it really dubious or are they just playing games with each other? But I mean, you know, here’s the thing I will say, is this my cup of tea? Absolutely not. But it is well written and I have to give props to Cards_Slash for that. It is well written, it is clever, the characters are truly themselves, they aren’t behaving like… not them. And even insofar as the relationship goes, if you want to call it a relationship. But what gets them to that point of physical intimacy makes sense, it’s within character, and it’s not a stretch of the imagination in that we do know, from canon, that Doc and Wyatt had a little thing going on. It’s not impossible to imagine that there was a love triangle between Wyatt and Doc and Bobo and now that Wyatt’s not around, which I think Wyatt was the object of both of their affections, Bobo is redirecting his intent toward Doc and, you know, Doc has his reasons behind letting things happen or not happen. So again, characters are themselves, stories are well written, they lead one from the other, each to the next, and again it’s slash fiction, most of our listeners are probably not going to be interested in this but for those of you who are this is a worthy diversion of your time. And again the series is called  _ Second Verse _ by Cards_Slash.

DELAYNE: I did read the first one of the series, and the comment section was the best. Because the comment section everyone was like, “wow, that was great, they’re in character and everything.” And Cards_Slash was like, “oh, I was just writing some smut, cool.” And it seemed to go from there. So I will agree with all of your points for the only first one that I read. 

DARKWICCAN: At least you’re being honest about the fact that you only read the first one.

DELAYNE: It was all I was willing to put into it. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: But again, it’s not your cup of tea. 

DELAYNE: It’s not my thing. But it is really well written.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, it has nothing to do with the quality of writing and everything to do with personal preference, and I did make the decision to sit down and read, as you know I read everything, and it was absolutely not a chore to read these stories. It wasn’t what I would normally sit down to read but again I gotta give credit where credit is due in that the writing and characterisation is excellent. So one more time before I toss it over to you Delayne, it is called  _ Second Verse _ by Cards_Slash, currently eight works in the series, it is a Doc/Bobo AKA Hollirey ship, explicit all of them, and you know maybe just check one out and hopefully you’ll agree with us at least that the writing is really really good.

DELAYNE: Alright, so how about we, there’s not a lot of sort of Doc specific, Doc alone sort of fics, but when Boo submitted this fic for the toothpaste challenge I was super happy to see it even though I knew it would not get very far because again, as you said our audience is kind of specific as to what we enjoy. But this is, it’s called _ Doc Versus the Twenty-First Century _ by BaggerHeda, as we call Boo. And literally just kind of being in Doc’s head what this new world is like and he does take a trip to the toothpaste aisle looking for tooth powder, which of course is, I mean it’s coming back in vogue, I actually found some, [inaudible] tooth paste powder recently, that was cool. But you know I’m terrible at summarising, it’s just so well written and I love the story so much because it really just takes a good look at Doc and his essentially waking up to a brand new world and what those differences are.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, that’s something that we didn’t really get to experience too much on the show, Doc sort of just appeared. And while we do know that he struggled to understand things like “auto-mo-biles”...

DELAYNE: [laughs] Eventually he did.

DARKWICCAN: Yep. We didn’t really get to see on the show him struggling too much with modern things. He seemed to slide into, what’s the word I’m looking for here? Laragh help me.

LARAGH: I just slid into the modern way of life without too much... awkwardness I guess? 

DARKWICCAN: Yeah exactly, there didn’t seem to be too much of a learning curve.

DELAYNE: At least that’s what they showed on the show. 

LARAGH: Right. There was some other stuff going on.

DELAYNE: “This tele-phoney sounds angry.” 

DARKWICCAN: [laughs]

DELAYNE: But also it seems like people forget that Doc was a dentist as well, so this toothpaste prop was used perfectly… me with words, we’re off to a great start. [laughs]

LARAGH: You’re doing good, you’re doing good. I completely agree with everything you’re saying.

DARKWICCAN: Something that I really enjoyed about this story is that Doc isn’t entirely trusting of the Earps, and Waverly appears in the drugstore, you know just happens to be there, and so I love that we have his thought process of “is she mocking me? Is she trying to trip me up? No she seems like she’s being pretty genuine.” And at this point in the story telling within the canon Waverly doesn’t know that John Henry, Johnny Hank, is Doc Holliday. So as far as she knows he’s just a kind of eccentric hipster type.

ALL: [laughs]

DELAYNE: Yeah, and that makes sense because tooth powder as I said, making a comeback. 

DARKWICCAN: Yeah.

LARAGH: “Old timey” I think she called it. I like that the prose even is written in Doc’s head, his internal monologue, even though it’s not first person.

DARKWICCAN: I love the fact that he’s a dentist, in name if not in practice, and he is overwhelmed by the wide array of options for dental hygiene available in this modern world. At least he recognises that dental hygiene is important.

DELAYNE: Yes, which not very many people did at that time.

LARAGH: He probably needs a pretty good swig of mouthwash after a hundred years down a well.

DARKWICCAN: Oh god, I don’t want to think about how fuzzy his mouth feels. I will say this, having a kid your daily routine does take a serious knocking, and there have been a couple of times where I didn’t get around to brushing my teeth until the afternoon and boy it was, ew.

DELAYNE: [laughs] Another thing, I could praise Boo all day and every day, but the research that went into this, you know, when toothpaste was a thing, what brands there were, Doc does see a brand that he recognises, so it’s brilliantly done. And very very Doc.

DARKWICCAN: Very Doc. And very fanfiction writerly of Boo. One of my favourite memes I’ve seen go around is the whole “me reading fanfiction: Ah I can suspend my disbelief no problem! Me writing fanfiction: If I don’t know the exact amount of a wool merchant’s earning in 1623 I will die!”

DELAYNE: [laughs] Yep.

LARAGH: Relatable.

DARKWICCAN: Very relatable. So yeah, it’s a fun little diversion called  _ Doc Versus The Twenty-first Century _ ?

DELAYNE: Yes,  _ Doc Versus The Twenty-first Century _ , the EFA Challenge season two toothpaste prompt.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, you got there eventually. Written by our pal BaggerHeda, known on Twitter as @BooinLA, so yeah, I think we’ve discussed our requisite amount of Doc fanfiction, shall we launch into the main event my friends?

DELAYNE: There was something that I saw on the internet that I would like to put out into the world.

DARKWICCAN: Okay.

DELAYNE: There are fans that want more Wyndoc, so writers put on your Wyndoc and write us more of that, we have requests. Putting that out there.

DARKWICCAN: Okay that’s totally fair, absolutely. There is an abundance of Wayhaught, I would say there’s even more Wyncedes and Wynsita than there are Wyndoc stories so absolutely.

DELAYNE: So that is my plea to the writers.

DARKWICCAN: Give us some more content y’all. Craving it. So let us take off our fic reviewer hats and put on our interviewer hats, and prepare for the next segment [CONTENT CENSORED. VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT] 

  
  
  
  
  


DARKWICCAN: And welcome back everybody to the season four premier episode of the  _ Earp Fiction Addiction _ , the podcast dedicated entirely to  _ Wynonna Earp _ fanfiction. I remain your host DarkWiccan and with me are my fabulous co-hosts, the lovely Delayne...

DELAYNE: Hi.

DARKWICCAN: And the amazing Laragh.

LARAGH: Hey.

DARKWICCAN: And as we teased before the break we are over the moon excited to welcome to the show, the nicest guy to ever play a vampire cowboy, the sweetest fellow to major in the mustache arts, the earpiest Earp of them all, Tim Rozon.

TIM: Wow, best introduction ever right there.

ALL: [laugh]

DARKWICCAN: Thank you.

DELAYNE: DW’s really good at them, yeah.

TIM: That was awesome.

DARKWICCAN: If you like I can copy it and send it on to Allison to forward to you so you can just have it printed.

TIM: It’ll be my new Twitter status.

DARKWICCAN: There you go [laughs]. That’s awesome, Tim thank you so much for taking time out of your quarantine to chat with us today.

TIM: It’s my absolute pleasure.

DARKWICCAN: What a bizarre time we are living in.

TIM: Yeah, that’s a complete understatement. 

DARKWICCAN: [laughs] It absolutely is. Gosh, I mean, the only thing we have as a point of reference happened over a hundred years ago. I want to say though that I’m grateful if it’s happening it’s happening now at a time where we have technology and we’re able to connect with each other like this.

TIM: Yeah, the internet’s been incredible throughout this. I was talking to somebody else actually about that and we had the ability to Facetime and still connect with people and friends and family. Yeah, it’s really wonderful.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, it definitely takes the edge off of isolation.

TIM: Yeah, I mean if we could just get fictional Jeremy and fictional Waverly to come to life I feel like the two of them, if we left them in a Black Badge lab for long enough they’d have the cure.

DARKWICCAN: Oh absolutely.

DELAYNE: [laughs] Genius, that was genius.

DARKWICCAN: Totally genius. It would probably be contrived of some dubious source materials but we would definitely have the cure.

TIM: Yes, and Wynonna would have to travel somewhere, to a back door or whatever, and shoot some nimrod in the head, who created it, and we would fix everything guys.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, curse the whole fictional character thing. Why do they have to be fictional! [laughs] Well, I’m grateful in a way that they are fictional because that means that you get the opportunity to play the incredible Doc Holliday and do such a spectacular job doing so.

TIM: Oh thank you, that means a lot to me.

DARKWICCAN: Much deserved my friend, and again a massive understatement. It’s an absolute delight watching you perform on screen, not only as Doc but as Mutt and now as Isaac on  _ Vagrant Queen _ , and really you’re a great actor man, because just thinking about the character you played on  _ Lost Girl _ and comparing it to Doc, I mean completely… I have to remind myself that it was you.

TIM: I really really really really like this podcast so far, I gotta tell you guys.

ALL: [laughs]

DELAYNE: Now, DW and I were discussing it and I, seriously, I still go back and watch  _ Lost Girl _ and think, “that’s not Tim, that can’t be Tim, Tim plays Doc, this is some other dude.” 

TIM: Look, I felt bad for Massimo, the guy was kind of in love with his mom. The whole dynamic was just wrong. 

DARKWICCAN: Yes.

TIM:  _ Lost Girl _ was a real fun experience too because it was one of those things where it’s kind of I did it, and Massimo died. And I was like, “okay that was a fun four episodes on that show, that’s cool.” And then eight months goes by and I get a call from my agent saying, “hey, so I have your dates for Massimo on Lost Girl,” I’m like, “uh, my character’s dead but sure?” He’s like, “oh yeah, you’re in six episodes,” and then all of a sudden the twig of Zamora or the seed, I think it was the seed that time. One time there was a twig, [inaudible], there was the twig of Zamora and a seed, what was the name of that seed I ate? I don’t know, there was a seed, I ate a seed, I came back super-powerful then the incident happened that we never need to discuss involving a sword, yeah.

DARKWICCAN: No, we shan’t, we’ll steer clear of that entirely.

TIM: Thank you, I appreciate that.

DARKWICCAN: Basically Massimo lived or died based on plants.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

TIM: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Maybe they were nuts, seeds, I don’t know.

DARKWICCAN: Maybe they were nuts.

DELAYNE: Someone was definitely nuts.

TIM: He was definitely vegan.

DARKWICCAN: So we know that Dominique would have approved.

TIM: And you know the cool thing was that was Emily Andras writing those, super cool. Also I had flannel shirts back then, Massimo paving the way for the rest of my career in flannel shirts. If there’s a paisley shirt anywhere on the truck, man they’re going to stick it on my character I’ll tell you that much. 

DELAYNE: You do look nice in paisley.

TIM: Thank you, I appreciate that.

DARKWICCAN: You do, you carry it off. Well, circling back around to  _ Wynonna Earp _ , as I mentioned in the intro this is the  _ Earp Fiction Addiction _ and we do primarily discuss fanfiction. Now, being an actor on the show of which our fanfiction is written we can’t really discuss fanfic with you in depth or in specifics because you’re not allowed to read it. Understandably so, this is something that we support in the fanfiction community. But one thing I will say is that the  _ Wynonna Earp _ fic community is first and foremost for fans of the show, but also is an incredibly talented group of authors so Tim, asking you, what is it about  _ Wynonna Earp _ that you think inspires so much creativity.

TIM: Oh, I mean there’s just so many strong powerful characters and, you know, they’re flawed and there’s so much dynamic to each of them. And the world itself is so huge and the Ghost River and the mythological aspect of it. There’s so much fun and there’s so many areas to play and so many characters to play with, and interact with. It’s like a writer's dream.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, you hit the nail on the head in one there. [laughs] It is absolutely a fantastically beautiful and wonderfully realised fantasy world that we get to play with and it is massive…

TIM: It’s huge.

DARKWICCAN: So there’s always something. 

DELAYNE: And the characters are, I guess, well designed in that they can also be moved into alternate universes very well. People like to play outside the Wynonna Earp canon which is fun.

TIM: Oh, that sounds super cool.

DARKWICCAN: It is cool. The only thing, I will say, hmm… I want Wynonna Earp to go on for seasons and seasons, I want it to become the Doctor Who of the SYFY channel, I want this to go on forever. But we know unfortunately that at some point someone’s going to say “we have had enough.” Now I hope that that person is ultimately Emily, I hope it’s on her terms. But until such a time in the far distant future that that happens, the one thing to look forward to for the cast is to finally be able to sit down and read fanfiction that’s been produced for this world. Because I think you’re going to be suitably impressed, and also flattered.

TIM: Oh man, I’m ready to break some rules and read some fanfic now.

DELAYNE: [laughs] No, no.

DARKWICCAN: No no, we’re not encouraging that at all. 

DELAYNE: You can wait until the show is over, I promise.

TIM: Well you know one of our production teams, it’s the same production team that does  _ Heartland _ , they’re on season fourteen. We’re only on season four, it could be a while before I get around to the fanfic.

DARKWICCAN: It could be a while, but just think of the library of works that will then be available to you.

TIM: That I like, I’ll get the  _ Pride and Prejudice _ of fanfics, it’ll be perfect.

LARAGH: Someone should write a _Pride and Prejudice_ _Wynonna Earp_ fic, just for Tim.

DARKWICCAN: Okay, authors who are listening, there’s the prompt,

TIM: ™, ™.

DARKWICCAN: Make sure you credit Tim.

LARAGH: So, when did you start writing? Have you always been a writer?

TIM: Ah, interestingly enough, yeah, I kind of always wrote. I used to write comic books as a kid, it was something I did, I obviously collected comic books, read them first as a kid and then started collecting them and was kind of like, you know I’d get my five bucks allowance at the end of the week, ride my bicycle, go to the comic shop, buy my comic, come home, try and trace the drawings and redraw, make my own comic books, make my brothers read them, over and over and over. My first character was like a super pig, he had a metal helmet, ironmanish inspired helmet, but he was a pig. 

DARKWICCAN: [laughs]

TIM: My favourite children’s story was Charlotte’s Web so I wanted to make a pig super, then I gave him super powers, he had a cape but he couldn’t afford a cape, so his cape was a tickle blanket, asecurity blanket that he had as a piglet and he wore that as a cape, the tickle blanket, and the helmet. It was pretty awesome.

DELAYNE: Okay, this needs to be a children’s book stat.

DARKWICCAN: You absolutely need to do this.

TIM: So I did that, I always like writing, it was probably the only thing I was good at at school, and badminton oddly enough I was pretty good at.

ALL: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Did you write stories about a super badminton player?

TIM: No I didn’t, I should have though.

DARKWICCAN: There’s still time.

DELAYNE: Well, since you obviously know quite a bit about comics, in the Marvel Universe we have the multiverse, in  _ Wynonna Earp _ we have the show and the comics, so is it fun to play in that alternative universe of the comics?

TIM: Yeah, it’s incredible. Plus the super cool thing about writing for the comics as opposed to writing for episodic television or something or a feature is that there’s no budget, you know what I mean? Because if you can draw it then it can be written. You know, if I say the four of us jump into a rocket ship right now, go to the moon, eat grilled cheese sandwiches and finish the podcast up there and fly back down here, I can do that in a comic book. Whereas if that were an episode, if we’re trying to film this like a reality podcast that’d be a little difficult and I’m sure as producers you guys would be like, “yeah, we can’t get the rocket, or permission to fly on the moon, maybe the grilled cheese but…” So yeah.

DARKWICCAN: We can sit around in spacesuits, attempting to get grilled cheese through our visors.

TIM: Exactly. We could Kickstart the moon. We could try.

DELAYNE: I need one of our talented Earper artists to draw us four on the moon, eating grilled cheese. I will pay an absurd amount of money for this right now.

TIM: Awesome. 

DELAYNE: Just putting that out there.

TIM: The real question is cheddar is better? Or you can’t miss with swiss?

DARKWICCAN: Both.

LARAGH: Both.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Why not both?

DELAYNE: All of the cheeses.

TIM: Even better. So, yeah, and Beau Smith he’s such a generous man. He’s a very humble guy, and very generous. Just the fact that he lets me into that world and lets me write with him is just such an honour and it’s such a fun thing to do is write with Beau Smith. It’s just a highlight of the year when it comes up. And the world, he lets me kind of do what I want in some ways too which is really beautiful and you know I got a couple of characters that I’ve created which are now part of that Wynonna-verse, which is pretty sick awesome. 

DARKWICCAN: That is incredible, that is so cool. And speaking of writing for the comic books, and writing specifically Doc for the comic books, do you find it easier or more difficult to write Doc’s voice in the comics having played him on screen?

TIM: Oddly enough, just the way it kind of worked out, it was normally Beau who wrote Doc, and I actually wanted to write the other characters. My favourite’s Wynonna, obviously, you know she’s got those snarky one-liners that are just so beautiful. And I love writing the Wayhaught kind of stuff too. I wrote the original sniper scene with the two girls sniping bad guys, that was actually me who wrote that one, that was super cool because we kind of had a nod to it in the show later. I never brought it up again really but just a subtle reminder, “I’m pretty sure I wrote that scene in the comic first and it’s cool”. And then there’s Bobo, Bobo’s one of my favourites, getting to write one of my favourite scenes ever was just a one page panel of a wolf in the woods with a deer and then the wolf becomes Bobo, because Mikey also loves his wolves and I know how much it means to Michael Eckland and it’s so beautiful we can do that and then so many characters. And then the character of Nora Radd that I created which got to be a pivotal character in the second book I did with Beau, which was his idea to bring her back which I thought was so giving and so amazing of him. But I mean, Nora Radd, if anybody knows me they know my favourite comic book character of all time is the Silver Surfer who is Norrin Radd, and I got to create this young girl named Nora Radd, yeah so Easter eggs are also aplenty, I love Easter eggs from the books.

DELAYNE: This is such wonderful insider information, I am loving this.

TIM: Yeah, guys, I got the goods.

DARKWICCAN: You do no doubt. [laughs] Sorry, to bring a perennial quote from  _ Wynonna Earp _ back, “that’s what she said.” 

TIM: Touche.

LARAGH: So you kind of just touched on this from the sniper scene but is there something from the comics, something else from the comics, that you’d love to see on the show or vice versa.

TIM: Well, obviously Valdez. You know, what an incredible character in the book that Beau created and I’ll just leave it there. [evil laugh]. I can’t say anything else. 

DELAYNE: What a tease. [laughs] Sorry.

TIM: Yeah, I’m not saying another word, so.

LARAGH: If we just wait it out. 

DELAYNE: Well, maybe you can answer this then. Doc has made some dubious moral decisions in his life, what is it about his character that drives him to make these choices and have you enjoyed getting to act out Doc’s darker side as the seasons have gone on?

TIM: I mean, he does these things because he’s flawed and not perfect, which is great because who wants to play a perfect character? Wait, I lied, I do. Because I kind of had the opportunity last year and I did my first Hallmark movie and I played a character called Travis who is just this perfect guy and you know what, it was really fun and it was really nice and I liked it. 

ALL: [laughs]

TIML Listen, Doc is… it’s fun to play that stuff. I’m a nicer person than Doc can be sometimes, so sometimes it's a little... challenging to see the reaction to what he has done. It’s never hard to do because I’m playing the character and I want to give one hundred percent to whatever the material I’m given and the direction that my character is going in. So Doc has his own reasons for doing these things, he’s selfish in his ways, but the thing that I always gotta remember is the other most selfish character is Wynonna in a lot of ways. To me they’re the two… they really are. Waverly, and Haught, kind of put others before themselves while Wynonna is kind of Wynonna you know? And Doc is Doc. Which is kind of why they’re good for each other because they’re so flawed together that together they kind of make one whole person. 

DARKWICCAN: One whole flaw…

TIM: One whole flawed person, less flawed, but it’s okay that they’re flawed to each other. But there are some challenges in the reaction to some of this stuff that Doc did. You know I’m an earpy Earp, I don’t want people doing bad stuff to our characters and I don’t want anybody causing Wynonna any pain and sometimes Doc does and as an Earper I’m like, “you son of a….” but as Doc, I mean that’s the way it’s gonna be. That’s just the way it’s gonna be. You know, season four hopefully there’s some redemption for some of the things that might have happened in season three.

DARKWICCAN: You know what, I have a feeling, based on where we were set up at the end of season three that Doc is gonna have a redemption arc. Obviously I don’t know, but I have this feeling. And you know better than us but you can’t say anything understandably.

TIM: Yeah, well look, I mean we’ve all followed his journey from day one, it’s pretty safe to say that at the end of the day the guy does have a good heart and I think his intentions are in the right place. He’s just not very good at doing the right thing and definitely not saying the right thing. But I personally believe that Doc Holliday’s got a good heart and I know what I want for him, I just think it’s boring TV. I want what he wanted in season one where he was talking to Dolls, and talking about he wanted to just raise barley and have a little farm and raise chickens and have barley. And season two you have Alice came along and his dream is to be with Wynonna and Alice and live in a little house up in the country and kind of just be in love. But who’s going to watch that? I mean I will but...

DARKWICCAN: Well, listen,  _ Little House on the Prairie _ was a very successful series for a very long time.

TIM: Yeah, it was. It was also pretty depressing because now you’ve got Alice, Alice goes blind, she’s got consumption,  _ Little House on the Prairie _ got pretty heavy. 

ALL: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, that’s true, that’s true. So unfortunately we are, thanks to this pandemic, on a temporary production halt on  _ Wynonna Earp _ , but we Earpers, and when I say Earpers I include everyone in that category, Tim yourself included, the entire cast, the crew, the writers, 7/24, everybody, SYFY, fought very hard to make sure Wynonna came back. So in the time you have had on set what has it been like being back on set following the success of the “Fight for Wynonna”.

TIM: Listen, I was never a person to take one second of being on that set for granted, or getting to play that character for granted, not one second for granted. But after almost losing something you love so much to get it back, let me tell you, am I happy. I’m just happier than I’ve ever been. You know, we’re on set, Dominique and I were on set and we were just looking at each other and we kept smiling, she smiled and then I smiled, and she laughed and I burst out laughing and you didn’t have to say why, we were freezing and we’re in a little tent, but I’ve got the hat on, and she’s Waverly and we’re back, you know what I mean? We’re happy, and it’s a great great great feeling. Yeah, I was super lucky. The Win for Wynonna and the Earpers and the fighting and what they did was just, one of the most meaningful experiences of my life and I’m grateful forever, it was inspiring. And no matter what happens we’ll always have this chapter in our lives. And I know for myself, and a lot of other people, I’ll look back on [inaudible] that was a great time in my life, maybe the best time in my life. You know? So I’m very, very lucky for that. I’m fortunate. And I think that every Earpers that fought, that tweeted, that built the billboards, that didn’t stop fighting and didn’t stop loving our show. And as you said Earpers and don’t forget producers too. I mean Josh Van Houdt at SYFY is one of our greatest allies and we were really, really fortunate and really lucky to have a TV exec, and sometimes in this business those are the villains, but we have one of them on our side fighting harder than anybody else, because he’s in the trenches, he’s an Earper. So it just trickles down from him, to Emily, to 7/24, to the cast, to the crew like you said, to the fans. It’s a once in a lifetime experience, and I’m aware of it and I’m grateful. And thank you.

DARKWICCAN: Hey, our pleasure, absolutely our pleasure. I think that something that happened for the fandom in having to fight and ultimately winning showed us that small groups of people who are filled to the brim with intention can move mountains. Yeah, and I think it was a rough time but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. We all grew as people in the process.

TIM: I mean that has just been on brand with our show from day one. You know, season two Mel came back, because Mel was pregnant, and a lot of other shows or scenarios with the lead actress coming back pregnant in the beginning of production pregnant, we either would have been on hold, or even god forbid we could have been stopped. Who knows? We were in the early stages, we didn’t know. We kept going, and there was the People’s Choice Awards where the fans fought for, they had to fight so hard, and we won when everybody said we couldn’t, this little show can’t and it shouldn’t, and we did. And then of course we’re going to lose our show for the exact reasons I can’t understand, some money was missing or who knows what happened exactly but we almost lost our show, we didn’t, we fought and we came back, and you know it’s on brand that a worldwide pandemic for the first time in history comes along literally the monday of hiatus, we’d just finished halfway through, everyone was going home for like a week and, “oh guys, by the way, nobody come back, well legally you can’t fly anywhere anyway, so we’re on hold indefinitely.” So yeah, it’s on brand. But we will finish, you know, we will get through this as a people, as a world, and as Earpers we will finish season four.

DARKWICCAN: Absolutely,  _ Wynonna Earp _ really is the little show that could. And speaking of little shows that could, you are on a new one. And I think the hiatus from Wynonna actually gave you the ability to take up this opportunity, you’re now Isaac on  _ Vagrant Queen _ , which at the time of this recording premiered last night, and dude it was so cool, I loved it so much. It reminded me, I was saying to Laragh and Delayne earlier, it basically reminded me of the  _ Hitchhiker's Guide _ mooshed in with  _ Firefly _ a little bit, but I think it’s better than  _ Firefly _ , and I love the production design, it’s very 1980s neon pop colours, it’s just such a fun, fun show. And I’m so thrilled for you that you were able to book it.

TIM: Um, first of all, great description, I would have agreed with you one hundred percent, you almost took the words out of my mouth so that’s great because I’m not great with words always. Copy and paste exactly what you said because that’s how I feel, really. And I love  _ Hitchhiker's Guide _ and I freaking love  _ Firefly _ and I love the neon eighties and I get exactly what you’re saying. And mostly it was fun. Last night was the first time I got to watch it also. I’m superstitious like that, I never watch shows [inaudible] the night of the live tweet and that’s really because of what happened with the Earp fandom and it was such a magical experience and like I said before, a once in a lifetime experience that I think just forever now that’s what I’m going to do. So I just got in there and how magical was it that Emily Andras, Kat Barrell, Melanie Scrofano all joined the live tweet yesterday. I mean, the support of these girls, to have their support, it means so much, it’s incredible, and you know a lot of other co-stars wouldn’t do that for a co-star on another show. But they all did it, they were awesome and then just the live tweet they [inaudible] were incredible. Isaac, it’s like Doc, as an actor I’m always happy to work, I never take that for granted how hard it is to get a job as an actor and then if you do you’re very lucky. But once in a while you get these parts where you just can’t believe you were lucky enough to get. And those two parts, you know, Doc Holliday of  _ Wynonna Earp _ , and Isaac Stelling of  _ Vagrant Queen _ , getting to do them simultaneously is like the most kick-ass experience ever.

LARAGH: I was just going to ask if you were familiar with the  _ Vagrant Queen _ comic book series prior to auditioning?

TIM: So I wasn’t when I first auditioned, I did a first tape and I remember being in Florida and I remember getting a side and a small breakdown and I loved it already. And in the breakdown it said it was based on a comic book but I got the sides the night before and I was on vacation so I didn’t have time to go to a comic book shop yet, I just had to find a person to put me on tape in Orlando. So I remember I actually wore a Mickey Mouse shirt to the audition because I had one, plus the guy was supposed to be from Earth trapped in space so I said if the guy is going to represent in space who better to represent than Mickey. So I remember I did the audition and I loved it and I really wanted it and when I got the call for the call back I made sure, when I got home I had put in my pull list, I have a comic shop back home. A pull list, for anybody who doesn’t know you can put comic books aside that your retailer will hold for you and you can go on a Tuesday or whatever and get your books. And  _ Vagrant Queen _ was added to it. And the book is by Magdalene Visaggio and Jason Smith and it’s incredible. I mean it’s the show, it’s super fun, if you thought what the show would be in the comic book, you know she kicks a lot of ass and Isaac gets in the way and Lazaro is there and the Admiralty are dicks, and she’s gonna try and take them all down and it’s pretty awesome.

DELAYNE: Were you relieved to not have to dye your hair orange for the series?

TIM: What do you mean? I kind of did, which sucks because your saying you didn’t notice, that’s horrible.

DARKWICCAN: [laughs] Dude, oh no.

TIM: I tried, the thing is I have a darker beard. There’ll be a couple of episodes where there’ll be hints of ginge in there, I promise you that. It’s not a consistent redness that’s for sure. But I actually did it for the callback, I really wanted it man, I really wanted that part. So I wore the Mickey Mouse shirt but I also went to a hair salon and said, “I want red” so what they had to do is they stripped my hair and by stripping it they made it horrible, which I was like, “this is perfect”, and they were “you can’t leave like this I haven’t put in the colour”, and I’m like, “no this is what I want, this is what I’m looking for.” She’s like, “no please,” and I’m like “you don’t understand, this is amazing.” And I left. And I remember it was actually Josh again from SYFY who saw my tape later and said “I saw your tape, what a great tape.” And I said “thanks, did you like my hair?” and he said “what do you mean your hair?” And I said “Because it was red.” He said, “I didn’t notice.” And I looked back and I guess the lighting, you couldn’t even tell, it looked darker than Wynonna’s. But I know, you know.

DELAYNE: We’ll blame it on the lighting.

TIM: Whatever I did worked so, if I’ve gotta bleach my hair for each part I will.

DARKWICCAN: [laughs] Which is typically like… don’t you have to sign an appearance contract for what you… that you’ll physically maintain your appearance for the thing at the time.

TIM: Well, Wynonna was on hiatus, I didn’t know what was happening. This was at a time when I thought I’d lost  _ Wynonna Earp _ , you know. So I had been sitting around all winter with that moustache, waiting for work. And then all of a sudden it’s like yeah I finally, finally heard it doesn’t look like we’re coming back. You know, Wynonna’s in trouble, we don’t have a date. Because we had a start date that they passed way over, they were over by a couple of months at that point it’s like, “holy moly what are we doing here?” Agents are like, they want to start throwing you out all the time for stuff, they have no mercy. Then this part came up and I’m like, “well I’m shaving”, I’m gonna try and do what I can do and see if I can get a part. I did book the Hallmark movie three days after bleaching my hair so I did apologise for that to my hair and make-up because I showed up in Vancouver looking pretty weird but you know, they’re professional and they fixed it, and you know. 

DELAYNE: Behind the scenes secrets, I love it.

DARKWICCAN: So what elements in  _ Vagrant Queen _ do you think Earpers are particularly going to enjoy and latch onto, besides you.

TIM: Look, there’s a whole bunch of stuff going on, right off the top you’ve got strong leading female characters, kicking ass, the LGBT is very represented and in a great way. It’s an all female directing, writing, producing, maybe the first in sci fi history, don’t quote me on that but I’m pretty sure. It’s all women. Jem Garrard is amazing, as a showrunner too. And I know how much the Earpers love our showrunner Emily, she’s right up there with Em. She’s incredible, she’s a powerhouse of a woman, and a person and she’s an inspiration. She writes and she directs and she showruns and she’s super kickass, and the girls kick ass, and I’m just lucky enough to play a supporting character to them. And it’s super awesome.

DARKWICCAN: Would you say it’s different being on a set where the production team is entirely female versus a more traditional set.

TIM: This is the norm for me, I’ve been supporting to strong female leads since the beginning of my career. I don’t know why I’m different to everybody else but that just seems to be the way for me, it’s where I fit in the world. So it’s always kind of been the norm for me. My first show,  _ Instant Star _ on the Nickelodeon network and the star of that was a young girl named Alexz Johnson and she was the lead and number one and she was amazing and it was my absolute honour and pleasure to be a support for her because that girl right off the bat showed me what it is to be a number one and to be a leader and amazing. Because she would film all day and then she would go and record the album, the actual songs for the show because it was a music show, and her work ethic was amazing and her positivity was also infectious and I worked with her for four or five years and a lot of that writing team works as the  _ Wynonna Earp _ writing team now. You know it was Emily, started on that. I’ve been working for Emily since I started in this business and I’ve been grateful for it, and you know going from that to  _ Lost Girl _ which was Emily’s show again. And between that the other show that I did between Wynonna and  _ Vagrant Queen _ I was lucky enough to do a show called  _ Diggstown _ shooting in Halifax, and the lead of that was Vinessa Antoine so again an incredible leading actress and I played support. It’s just one hundred percent normal to me. It’s great. I highly recommend it to everybody.

DARKWICCAN: I think that’s fantastic and I think that should be the normal for everybody. I think you’re very lucky that’s been your career experience.

DELAYNE: I’m trying to think of something supportive to say about it too but I’m coming up all bras. 

DARKWICCAN: [laughs] Nice call back.

DELAYNE: No that’s awesome.

LARAGH: It is awesome. You know what else is awesome is your writing career, so veering back to that for a moment, do you think you’ll have an opportunity to write a comic for  _ Vagrant Queen _ or is that something you would like to do?

TIM: Oh, I mean, as much as t I would love to... I have a special relationship with Beau, it’s different, so I don’t know if I’d even approach… I’d be scared of Magdalene and Jason, I would be like “hey, would you trust me with your characters?” And they’d have every right to be like, “fuck no,” and I’d get it. 

ALL: [laughs]

TIM: I get it. But, my goal at this point in my writing career is just to be a fly on the wall, I’ve said it to Emily and I’ve said it to Jem, my goal would just to be if I could go watch and just sit in the writers room, not even to think that I could write or say that I would be opportuning to write with them, no it would just be to watch and learn from either one of them. That’s my goal at this point and it’d be more for TV at this point, and to be with them. I would love to write something with Beau, now would be a great time, in quarantine it would be amazing, we can release it digitally, I’m down. So yeah, my goal at this point writing-wise is just to learn and who better to learn from than an Emily Andras or a Jem Garrard. It would be incredible.

DARKWICCAN: Master classes for sure. That’s amazing.

DELAYNE: I would like to bring up something that was mentioned before we started recording, DW has apparently talked to you about this before but I think the rest of the world would be interested in knowing about your restaurant career. What drew you to become a restauranteur?

TIM: You know, there’s two types of bees in the world, there’s queen bees and worker bees and I’ve just always been a worker bee. And I started working in restaurants since I was fourteen and I started in a restaurant cutting potatoes from fourteen to whenever, and then all my jobs were restaurants, front of house, back of house, and it was during that time when I was filming  _ Instant Star _ I was up in Toronto filming the show but the opportunity came to open a space in Montreal with my best friend and another partner and I just said screw it man, I’m in, and I just took every single penny I had out of the bank account and we just kind of did this thing, and we built it and when I had the time off between filming seasons of  _ Instant Star  _ I would go and work there and was fortunate enough that it worked. Now I have two restaurants and have over fifty six employees and it’s pretty incredible. But it’s a testament to my partner and how amazing they are. Of course now with the world we’re living in I don’t know what’s happening. We’ll see what happens when all this is over, if I still have both, any, one. You know, I worry about my staff at a time like this and luckily I was able to get them all UI at this point and our government is coming in with pretty good stimulus packages for young restaurant workers and stuff like that but it’s a difficult time, and we’ll see what happens.

DARKWICCAN: Fingers crossed for you, I really hope that once this is all over you still have those restaurants. Because you know that an influx of Earpers will come in to eat at your restaurants so that you are able to start turning profits again.

TIM: I’ve had so many come and it’s my pleasure. I love serving Earpers because they’re always like their mind is blown for a second, “why is Tim in an apron making food for us?” Because I said, that’s just my style, I’m a worker bee. Nobody would know that I own a restaurant, if you saw me there you’d never see me in the front of house, I’m in the back still probably cutting potatoes to this day, that’s what I do if I’m in there, I do dishes or I’m in the back wearing an apron. I’m not a front of the house type person. But I love when Earpers come, try to give me a message and a heads up before, it’s my greatest gift in life is to take care of Earpers at the restaurants, I love it. Plus I get to show them all the knick knacks that I have hidden around the restaurant you know? I have some of Megan’s stitches, I have an “All In” cross-stitch, I’ve got comic books, I’ve got all kinds of little Earp paraphernalia lying around the restaurant. Pretty sick.

DARKWICCAN: That’s fantastic. What’s the name of your restaurants?

TIM: Le Garde Manger and Le Bremner. You have to be francais in Montreal.

DARKWICCAN: Ah oui oui, is it French cuisine? 

TIM: No, more like an East Coast bistro, like East Coast stuff, a lot of seafood, home cooking stuff. My partner, my friend and partner, he blew up, he had his own food show on the Food Network called  _ Chuck’s Day Off _ , he was on  _ Iron Chef _ , he actually beat Bobby Flay with lobster as his ingredient.

DARKWICCAN: Oh man.

TIM: So we became famous, it’s a small little place, we had no money. Like I said I put in everything I had, I didn’t say I had a lot. I was a Canadian actor over here guys. So yeah, and yeah my partner he just blew up, his career really took off and that was great for us, as a small little place. Once we became known as the place that beat Bobby Flay, the little place in Old Montreal that was able to beat Bobby the people started coming even more. So that was great, I’ve been very fortunate. And to be honest the only reason I ever opened the second one was because I had such an incredible staff, what do you do with these kids? I had waiters and waitresses that are just so suited to be managers, you know, what do we do with them? Alright, so let's open up another place and right now the boss, her name’s Jessica, and without her it all falls apart, but that was the easiest decision ever was to give her shares because like this girl’s running the whole show. Chuck’s doing his TV show and I’m doing mine but at the end of the day who do we depend on the most, Jess. So at the end of the day she’s the boss now, she has the shares. She is the boss. She’s also the hammer. They don’t mess with Jess. Like nobody cares about me, I’m not the boss, you know what I mean? I’m never going to be the boss when I come in there. I’m the fun uncle, everybody likes when I’m there because I’m going to be the fun uncle. But that’s not good for business. You need Jess. You need a Jessica guys, get yourselves a Jessica. I highly recommend it. It makes your life a lot easier. She’s the best.

DARKWICCAN: Everybody needs a Jess. So skipping along from your restaurant life, you’re also an accomplished musician on the guitar. If you could record an album, or if you had plans to record an album, what style of music would it be, and if you had any duets who would you feature with you?

TIM: I would never record an album, my little brothers are amazing. They were both on the Canadian version of  _ The Voice _ and they made it to almost the final round, two of them. They’re just really really incredible. But I noodle, I play around and it’s something I used to do as a teenager. I was kind of an introvert so I just hid at home and read comic books and played guitar, which is great because now I can shred.

ALL: [laughs]

TIM: Those things pay off later, you don’t realise. But yeah, I’m not good enough. But if I ever did it would probably be along the country lines of an album. If I could do a duet with Dolly Parton. I’m not asking much...

DARKWICCAN: Oh.  _ Islands in the Stream _ featuring Tim Rozon and Dolly Parton.

TIM: You know, Dolly, Willy Nelson, you know just a couple of young country up-and-comers. The Dollys, the Willy Nelsons, there’s a Canadian guy from Saskatoon called Colter Wall that I listen to religiously and he’s incredible. I love him. And there’s another gentleman named William Prince and he was just making really good music, and he’s out of Winnipeg, Manitoba, just really really inspirational stuff.

DARKWICCAN: Well, you know, I know you say you’ll never record an album but if a producer comes up to you and says, “listen, just an EP” I hope you’ll take them up on the offer.

TIM: Um, you might regret that.

DARKWICCAN: Listen, auto tune is a thing if you need a little help, but I don’t think that you’d need it.

TIM: If you listen to William Prince, William Prince from Manitoba, he’s a First Nations singer, I’ll never record an album because this guy is just. It’s soul, it’s beautiful, what am I going to be, when there’s this guy out there.

DARKWICCAN: Well, let me flip the question a little bit then. If Dominique were to record an album and came up to you and said, “Tim would you please sing back up or sing a duet on the album with me?” would you take her up on the offer?

TIM: I would do whatever Dominique Provost-Chalkley asked me to do. I would prefer to noodle on guitar in the background. We’ve jammed from time to time, you know, if there’s a guitar around and the two of us are there we’ll play together. But again, she’s a real singer, Dom, she’s the real deal. And this year I know she’s been playing a lot so she’s really honing that skill. So this would be a real question for her, if you speak to her. I think that’s something she would like to pursue and I think I’d love it if she did because she writes her own stuff and from what I’ve heard it’s pretty amazing and beautiful.

DELAYNE: I guess that means we’ll have to have her back on right DW?

DARKWICCAN: We’ll have to have her back on the show. And we’ll say that Tim you said that she needed to come back on so we’ll use that when we reach out to her agent… Well Tim, this has been so much fun. What a wonderful way to while away an hour in this strange self-isolation situation we’re all in.

TIM: Yeah, I forgot we were in quarantine for a minute. 

DARKWICCAN: Sorry to remind you. My bad. But I’m looking forward to when this is over with and you being able to get back to normal on set with  _ Wynonna Earp _ , and your restaurants, and  _ Vagrant Queen _ , and everything you’ve got going on. I am so happy that you’ve got all of these wonderful positive things happening in your life. And it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

TIM: You know what, thank you so much, it means a lot. I’ll say this on that note, I’m aware of that fact, of how lucky I am. Sometimes I think in life good things happen people aren’t aware of it, and they need to be because moments like this, they don’t come along all the time. And I’m one hundred percent aware and really grateful for amazing things going on in my life.

DARKWICCAN: And we’re grateful for you and we look forward to seeing what amazing thing you do next.

TIM: Guys, it’s been a pleasure. 

DELAYNE: I’m tipping my hat.

DARKWICCAN: Likewise.

TIM: Nice.

And that's all for this season 4 premiere episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you so much to the charming and delightful Tim Rozon for chatting with us today!

  
  


Thanks also to our announcer Byron Tidwell for our intro 

Background music for the episode was:

A Proper Story and In case of Trouble by Darren Korb

A Cowboy Reborn by By-the-way-May

and the outro music is Don't Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Madigan

  
  


If you have questions or comments for the podcast you can find us on Twitter at E-F-A underscore Podcast and on Facebook at E-F-A Podcast. 

And you can find all of our episodes, old and new, at our website E-F-A Podcast dot com.

And if you're listening on iTunes, please take a moment to rate and review our show.

  
  


Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you'll join us again next time for another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Until then, READ MORE FIC!


	2. Ready, Able.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This week DW and Delayne talk ships, goo, hematology and meaninful endings with author Able_Jack as we discuss their fic: 'The Deeps and the Days'!

[Click HERE to Listen!](http://efapodcast.com/ready-able)

Read the fic!

[The Deeps and the Day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20716115)s by Able_Jack

Episode artwork by: Chantal Zeegers

Able_Jack's Desert Island Fic Selection: [The Sum Total of Living](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13041252) by doctoruth

Episode Transcript by: Khevzs!

EFA EP402 - Ready, Able.

[ph] – Indicates preceding word has been spelled phonetically

[sic] – Indicates preceding word has been transcribed verbatim

DARKWICCAN : Thanks, Announcer Guy and welcome everybody to the second episode of our fourth season?! What?!

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Of the Earp Fiction Addiction podcast, the podcast dedicated entirely to Wynonna Earp fanfiction. I am still your host Darkwiccan, and with me is my delightful co-host.

DELAYNE : Hi! It’s Delayne.

DARKWICCAN : And Delayne, what a world we’re currently living in, my friend. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Yeah, I mean, it’s good to have this nice microphone setup at home, right?

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, exactly. We’re all working from home these days—those of us that can—and hats off to those of you who can’t, who are in the trenches working in health case, and working in retail, you know, food stores, things like that. You know, doing gig work and delivering food [sic] people’s houses. Like, seriously, you guys are heroes. You’re putting yourself in danger daily. And it’s true!

DELAYNE : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : I mean, it’s like [laughs]. Uhm, yeah, so [sic] person who’s delivering for Door Dash is putting themselves in danger every day to make sure that those of us who are lucky enough to be able to work and stay at home are able to keep our butts inside and kinda sheltered in place, uh [ph] as the [ph] wash cry of the day. Now, Delayne, your job – you have to go in, right? Because it’s—it’s food service.

DELAYNE : Exactly.

DARKWICCAN : Well, not “food service,” but it’s in service of food [laughs].

DELAYNE : It’s, uh, it makes the food so the food service workers can get it to the people. Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah.

DELAYNE : That’s for sure.

DARKWICCAN : And you’re making sure that the food is safe.

DELAYNE : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : So that’s important.

DELAYNE : Yes, and—

DARKWICCAN : We want you to— yeah.

DELAYNE : You know, the standard operating procedure for keeping clean for this virus is actually the thing that you should be doing all the time every day at the work that I do, so.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. So, hopefully you and the folks who are there actually processing the, uh, the “organic materials” are uhm—

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Are following protocols.

DELAYBE : Yes!

DARKWICCAN : I know you are. I know you are. Yeah, for sure.

DELAYNE : I get to stand and glare at people and yell at them if they don’t, so.

DARKWICCAN : Ok, [ph] gah thank you for keeping everyone in line and again thank you for putting yourself in danger so that the rest of us may be, uh, tucked away safely within our houses. So, yeah, if in case you’re listening to this from another planet—

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Right now [laughs] – we are, uh – it’s the end of March, we are, uh, in a – not the absolute end, but near the end of March, and we are very much in a dire situation here in the US. Italy is on lockdown. It looks like things have finally settled down in China. They’ve been through the worst of it and they’re coming down on the other side, which is good. But the rest of the world is in danger and our president is an idiot.

DELAYNE : [Chuckles]

DARKWICCAN : And, is therefore putting the entire country in danger because he is a preening…

DELAYNE : [Clears throat]

DARKWICCAN : Uh, I almost said a really bad word [laughs]

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Let’s change the subject, as much as I would love to…

DARKWICCAN : [Snorts]

DELAYNE : Complain.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah.

DELAYNE : Let’s make this a happy place.

DARKWICCAN : Ok, so one unfortunate side effect [laughs]. It’s is a happy place. Right. A sad side effect of that situation [laughs]

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Is that, unfortunately, Wynonna Earp production has had to temporarily shut down. I underscore the word “temporarily” and I put it in bold and italics because it is definitely temporary. Once we get past this initial hump, which could be, couple weeks, could be a month, could be two months, but we do know that they will get back to work. They do have the funds; it’s not an issue of them not having the funding to continue. It’s an issue of safety for everyone involved. So, we’re in a temporary secondary hiatus of filming for Wynonna Earp at the time of this podcast recording. Now, as you know, we record a month out, so it could be by the time this airs they have dusted off the cowboy hats and the boots and they’re back at work. We just don’t know.

DELAYNE : Hopefully.

DARKWICCAN : But, you may have noticed, when I [sic] intro’ed this episode I said it’s the second episode of season 4. That is true, this is the second episode of season 4.

DELAYNE : [Chuckles]

DARKWICCAN : You may or may not have heard the first episode [laughs]. That is because, thanks to a production staff on Wynonna Earp, our special guest, we’ve lost our contact with. And, so, until we can get that individual—I said before starting recording to Delayne, “Ah! Who cares if it’s a spoiler?” You know what? I do care. 

DELAYNE : Yes, thank you [laughs] I was—I like the hinting.

DARKWICCAN : So I’m just gonna say that individual—yes, is a member of the Wynonna Earp crew, casting crew, and they graciously agreed to come on the show. We were actively working with their quote “handler” through the network, in this case Syfy, to get them lined up for their scheduled interview. And then, production shut down, and we lost touch with our—with that third party person. So, always go through appropriate channels to get this individual lined back up. So, either it will have happened, and--

DELAYNE : And you will be like, “old news.”

DARKWICCAN : This while—old news, yeah—it will happen, we would have gotten them on recorded in time to have them –that episode be the premiere episode of the season or it will not have happened and we’ll have to push their episode to a further point within the season that will be aired, but it was not gonna be the premiere. Oh, well [laughs]

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : But, uh, if that’s the case it means we’re starting off with episode two, so welcome and yeah hopefully it gets sorted out. But if it doesn’t, don’t worry, we’ll have that person, we will have this individual on at some point during the season so don’t stress. We’ve got our super extra special guest lined up so. So, yeah, that’s happening.

DELAYNE : So, so—

DARKWICCAN : Thanks COVID. Thanks COVID [laughs]

DELAYNE : So either welcome, or welcome back. Let’s get this—

DARKWICCAN : Yes.

DELAYNE : Let’s—

DARKWICCAN : Show on the road.

DELAYNE : This party started.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, if I agree, we can’t really get this show on the road, can we? ‘Coz we’re sheltering in place, so.

DELAYNE : Yes [laughs]. Let’s—let’s get this s-social—this internet, uhm, party—

DARKWICCAN : Social distance…thing.

DELAYNE : Social distance thing. Yeah [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Rockin’. Let’s do it.

DELAYNE : Awesome. Alright!

DARKWICCAN : If the internets are rockin’, don’t come a kno—wait.

DELAYNE : [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Okay. So yeah, let’s dive into it. We are here to talk about fanfiction and my friend, my friend, my dear buddy, my pal. The one thing this hiatus has been good for is fanficiton.

DELAYNE : [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : And I’m not talking about the COVID hiatus. I am talking about the EXTENSIVE hiatus from the end of season 3 to the beginning of season 4, which is yet to air. And, it’s been great because [chuckles] I mean it’s said that—it’s sad that we had to extend it.

DELAYNE : People are desperate.

DARKWICCAN : But people are desperate for content. They’re DESPERATE for content. I mean, we have people who are getting a little-who had gotten a bit out of hand, before production was absolutely renewed and they were kinda harassing certain members of the cast to give them some stuff on social media, and, it’s like, guys, I get it, you want some kind of content from our favorite people. But, like, chill [chuckles].

DELAYNE : [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : You need content? Fanfic is there for you, my friends. We’re talking canon, canon-divergent, alternate universe, you name it, we got it.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : All levels of ratings. We are here for you. I sound like some crazy sort of salesman. But it’s true.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : And [chuckles] And, so, so yes. So we are gonna be, uh, we’ve got some great titles and I made a—I made a concerted effort—a CONCERTED effort to make sure that every single author we interview, with the exception of two—every single author we interview for the first fifteen, sixteen episodes of this season, ‘coz we’re doing a full 30-episodes again, is a new author who we haven’t interviewed before. Now, like I said, we’ve got an exception of two, and that, they actually will appear in their own episode together, which will make sense to you when we get to that episode.

DELAYNE : Oooh.

DARKWICCAN : But otherwise, everybody else up through episode—I wanna say, sixteen? Is a new author to the show. They have not been on the show. I worked very hard at this. So, uhm, so I’m patting myself on the back.

DELAYNE : Yes! Good job!

DARKWICCAN : Go, me!

DELAYNE : Kudos! Hurray. [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] So that includes today’s author who has done some incredible work for the fandom in fic form, recently, and they immediately caught my attention. Immediately caught my attention, front and center, with this story that we’re talking about today. That story is called, “The Deeps and The Days” and the author is Able_Jack. And this is the third fic of theirs in the Wynonna Earp fandom. They have a total of four so far. But it was really “The Deeps and The Days” that just grabbed my attention and would not let me go, and it is a story that—I don’t really get emotionally involved in fic too much?

DELAYNE : Uhm [chuckles]

DARKWICCAN : And I-- I think it’s because I…

DELAYNE : Yeah, that’s, that’s [sic] your mark.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, yeah. You know, it’s because I read so much of it, right? [Laughs]

DELAYNE : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : It’s kind of—there’s a bit of an unfortunate muting of the senses, you know, once you’ve been exposed to so much for so long. But this story, [ph] woof, it got me right in the chest.

DELAYNE : And, uhm, yeah. When I was reading it, I was a little concerned for you, my friend [chuckles]. I was going to ask you—

DARKWICCAN : Oh, thank you, buddy. Yeah.

DELAYNE : Uh, yeah, how [sic] you doin’?

DARKWICCAN : [Deep breaths] I’m fine, I’m fine now. And I mean, the thing is, if this is an angsty, angsty fic and when I—for another—I kinda—I love angst and it might just be because, again, I’ve been exposed to so much fic—so much fic that you kinda need something that’s gonna kinda sucker punch you a little bit to keep you engaged. And, boy, howdy, this fic really kinda got me. It really got me. I mean, I don’t remember the first time I read it if I cried or not but I feel like I might have been close. I was definitely deeply, deeply moved. And this is a fantastic reimagining of season 2.

DELAYNE : Yeah. I definitely—canon-divergent. When they first starts out I’m like, “oh, I wonder how close is this gonna stay?” And it did not stay close.

DARKWICCAN : No. It took a hard left. 

DELAYNE : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : And, boy am I glad it did because what I think that they did here with the choices that they made and their story telling is they actually gave—okay so everyone’s seen the show, right? [Laughs]

DELAYNE : [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Okay [laughs] spoiler alert [deep breath] They actually gave Dolls a better way out than the show itself gave Dolls.

DELAYNE : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : And…

DELAYNE : And that surprised me too. I was actually surprised by that. It was, it was well done.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, it was surprising. Uh-huh. They truly did give him a true hero’s demise, as opposed to a, “oh, here comes the black man, sacrificing himself to save the white person” [chuckles] you know, thing. They gave him a true—they gave him a true hero’s demise that allowed him to use his abilities I think in a far more effective and hurt-rending way. Because, I think—now—okay, let’s, let’s—before we really dive into this story here.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Let’s take a really quick—no I’m just doing the usual thing of talking everyone’s ear off. And I apologize, but hopefully this will give us a little bit of back and forth conversation.

DELAYNE [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Let’s take a super quick divergent chat over to season 3 episode 2. It was not clear to me that Dolls was terminal. It was obvious that we has not doing well, but it wasn’t clear to me as a viewer—I’m not, I can see myself a relatively savvy watcher—that him using his abilities was going to kill him. That, to me, wasn’t made clear in the story telling of that episode. So when he did die in the end, spoiler!

DELAYNE : [Chuckles]

DARKWICCAN : When he did die, it was like, “wait, why? What [confused gibberish]. What just happened? Why did? Huh?” You know.

DELAYNE : Yeah, that was—I actually never pondered on that much, but now that you mentioned it, ‘coz you know I’m the oblivious type, yeah it’s not clear.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, whereas, again, spoiler. We know that Dolls is going to end, you know, die in the series. So because this is a canon-divergent, I would say, stroke-adjacent story, you know, his demise—his death in the story is not like a [sing-song] shock as far as, “oh no, a character! You can’t kill the character.” It’s more of a “oh, that is a much better way to handle that.”

DELAYNE : Yes [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah [laughs]

DELAYNE : I know you’re—

DARKWICCAN : Because—

DELAYNE : Apparently I did not consume enough caffeine this morning. Sorry [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : It’s ok. Because the stakes are made indelibly clear.

DELAYNE : Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

DARKWICCAN : That’s the difference. We know the stakes. So, that is, it’s really brilliant the way that Able_Jack gave him a true hero’s ending, I think.

DELAYNE : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : So, spoiler, Dolls dies at the end. But really, that’s not what the story—I mean that happens—but that’s not what the story is about. That is not what the story hinges on, the story hinges on what if the goo wasn’t a situation of, “Waverly touches the goo and she becomes possessed by Mictian.” What if the goo, what if Mictian is something else.

DELAYNE : Something darker, and deeper, and more complicated.

DARKWICCAN : Yes, and what if no one is able to figure that out? For a…

DELAYNE : Very long time.

DARKWICCAN : Terrifying amount of time [chuckles]. It’s one of those things where like if you’re watching a horror movie and you know—you figured out who the bad guy is and the bad guy is in the room with the [laughs] you know, and you’re just creaming at the screen, “he’s right there!”

DELAYNE : “Coming from inside the house!”

DARKWICCAN : “He’s coming from inside the house! He’s right there! He’s right there!” And like, the, your hero characters are just kind of like, “well, it can’t possibly be coming from over there! It has to be.” You know [laughs]. But yeah, it’s just like, you don’t even know that it’s an option, right? That all your heroes don’t know. YOU know, YOU see it happening, and you’re just like, “oh, no! No! N-n-it’s this thing! You have to look into this thing! This thing! Why isn’t anybody talking about this thing?!” And you know [laughs] So, that’s, it’s great in that kind of, you know, when you’re reading it, you’re like, “oh my God! Come on, you guys!” [laughs]

DELAYNE : And of course, Able_Jack [sic] is expertly makes the characters, I mean they really—if they—the thing that they’re leaning towards that is the issue isn’t of course the actual bad guy, but it makes sense to them as to why, what, where it’s coming from, and so it’s a great, I guess, kinda twist to the characters. Not necessarily to us, but the characters are like, “woah!” [chuckles]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, like, “what?! Wait a minute! Now, how do we—what?” Yeah, uhm, so let’s see. How to talk about this story without giving away the game? ‘Coz we already gave away the end, so [laughs]

DELAYNE :[Laughs] So…

DARKWICCAN : But to me, that’s—I mean, the end is so noble and beautiful, you know, and I think it’s worth reading just—I think it’s okay, personally, knowing that we have a heroic ending. You know, because I mean, there is a major character death.

DELAYNE : Yep.

DARKWICCAN : But it’s a noble one. A noble one that they didn’t get in the actual show, in my opinion. In MY—in MY humble [ph] opine [laughs].

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : [mouth fart] 

BOTH : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : Well, instead of—instead of maybe talking more about the specifics, I would like to state Able_Jack’s ability to seamlessly jump and just—the characterization, when the point of view is, you know, Nicole, or Waverly, or Wynonna.

DARKWICCAN : Uh-huh.

DELAYNE : Is absolutely beautiful.

DARKWICCAN : It’s gorgeous, oh my gosh. Able_Jack has got such a handle on these characters. Such a deep understanding of each of these characters that you’re absolutely right, Delayne. They are able to go from one character’s POV to the next and it’s never confusing.

DELAYNE : Yep, yeah.

DARKWICCAN : You always know whose point of view you’re in. But it’s so believable, it’s like, “yes, this is absolutely, you know, Wynonna’s mindset, or Waverly’s mindset, or Nicole’s mindset.”

DELAYNE : [laughs] I have quite a few screen captures highlighted things [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yes. Yeah.

DELAYNE : As usual, when I read. And, that are just, I mean, just starting out, it really, when it sets the scene, you know…you know we’re starting in season 2, and…

DARKWICCAN : Uh-huh.

DELAYNE : I just have to read this, ‘coz it’s very much Wynonna, “sweet crotch’o’mine Nedley has convinced the fine folks of Purgatory that Bobo poisoned everyone as revenge over the loss of my vajazzle.”

DARKWICCAN : Yes [laughs] My favorite line from that sequence is Waverly going “Let’s don’t talk about your vagina again.”

DELAYNE : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : “For a little while, ‘kay?” [laughs]

DELAYNE : [Laughs] “No promises” [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, yeah.

BOTH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, that’s not a fair demand to make on Wynonna, let’s be honest. Let’s be honest. 

DELAYNE : Yeah, uhm, and then--

DARKWICCAN : Uh—

DELAYNE : It’s—the scene setting, and, especially when it starts, you really, you know, for those of us [mouth fart] ugh. For those of us who’s seen the show many, many times [laughs] I mean, [sic] bam, we’re nice and—

DARKWICCAN : Which is pretty much all of us, I mean.

DELAYNE : Solidifying right in canon where we need to be to, I guess, diverge and parallel along this interesting track.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, exactly, and I love how we get a fresh perspective on beloved established scenes like the, you know—

DELAYNE : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : The very famous scene in [laughs] episode two, right?

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Episode 2 of season 2, the love scene. I just love it that it’s from Waverly’s point of view, and—

DELAYNE : [Laughs] I’m pretty sure I—I—yeah [laughs] screen-captured some of those.

DARKWICCAN : I, I love the—where, you know, Wynonna calls to pick her up, and Waverly’s thought process, “woah! They’re really doing this! Sex! Or, making out with intent? Foreplay?”

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] It’s—I love this line, “it seemed like sex, but it also doesn’t seem like something Waverly could stop and ask about.” [Laughs]

DELAYNE : [Laughs] I like her moments of, “stop thinking about Champ!” [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yes [laughs] “please, mind, please shut up!” Yes.

BOTH : [laughs]

DELAYNE : [Coughs] Oh, my gosh.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, so, I [laughs] I also love how we get the creeping realization that something isn’t right. You know, and it’s there from the very beginning where, you know, one of the characters has to sign their name in blood. We know that three, at least three characters signed their names in blood for Black Badge, right?

DELAYNE : Uh-huh.

DARKWICCAN : And so that means they had to prick their fingers, and so it starts off very subtly like this finger won’t stop bleeding. When it’s just a pinprick, it should stop like in less than a minute, right. And it’s just gonna start slowly continuing to bleed before it finally coagulates and stops. And then, and then we get, you know, this moment where this character is carrying something from one room to another and is looking down at this object, and a drop of red falls down and their first instinct is to look up at the ceiling.

BOTH : [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : And like, what is that? Where is that coming from? And, oops, it’s coming from them. And so, you know, I just love that sort of slow buildup of essentially symptoms to the discovery of what is going on.

DELAYNE : Yes. It’s very intense.

DARKWICCAN : It is very, very intense.

DELAYNE : Subtle yet intense.

DARKWICCAN : Yes, yes. Another thing I really, really love about the story is, again, Able_Jack’s ability to, as you said, go from perspective to perspective. But REALLY taking advantage of each of these characters’ respective skills and abilities Like, for example, you know, Waverly is extremely smart and super hyper intelligent, like, you know—

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : And that’s something I feel like gets forgotten about?

DELAYNE : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : On the show sometimes? ‘Coz they’re so focused on her being sweet and cute, and [laughs] but she is a polyglot, she is an incredibly well-read, super smart, really genius, and it’s something that even Emily has said that Waverly is probably one of the smartest people if not the smartest person in Purgatory, and the fact that she and Rosita had that connection that one time is because they are on the same level intelligence-wise, you know. Rosita is basically—if she wasn’t a genius to start out, she definitely developed a skillset over a hundred of years of getting many, many degrees, right? So. So, you know, I love that fact that Able_Jack hasn’t forgotten the fact that Waverly is incredibly intelligent and can actually put experts in their place.

DELAYNE : I [laughs] and it’s done a few times with Nicole just standing there like, “uh-huh.” [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Getting really turned on, yeah.

DELAYNE : Like, “I don’t know what you’re saying, but this is fantastic,” especially when Waverly’s messing with—when people had been Waverly Earp’ed [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yes, exactly. Yes. Yes [laughs] So, so yeah. Essentially what we have here is, we have to reiterate a canon-divergent retelling of season 2. So it’s canon-divergent stroke-adjacent, in my opinion. We have a, “what if the goo is something else?” Like, the goo is the goo, but what if the goo is something else, other than how we were kind of -

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Entertained by it in the actual series.

DELAYNE : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : What if they didn’t have to drop the goo storyline so quickly and wrap it up so quickly in order to deal with the other storyline that was thrust upon them. You know, by Melanie getting pregnant, and having to take that into account in the storytelling, right. What if they didn’t have to? You know, I mean, I’m not saying that that’s not part of the story, what I’m saying is that what if they didn’t have to drop all their resources from the goo story to go into that story. What if they could follow the goo through.

BOTH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : That’s WHAT the story is, yeah.

DELAYNE : I hadn’t considered that. That’s, yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, and angst warning.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Angst warning: this story touches on a type of condition that I have personal experience with and so seeing that kind of re-experienced on the page, in such a delightfully brutal and realistic way, given the fact that this exists in a fantasy world essentially, really got to me. So guys, if it got to me, just angst warning.

DELAYNE : Yeah [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Angst— [whispers] angst warning.

BOTH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : For me, it hurts so good. It hurts so good for me. But for others it might be a bit much, so—

DELAYNE : Was it—was it cathartic, in any way?

DARKWICCAN : Uhm, I guess, yeah, there was a little bit of catharsis, yeah.

DELAYNE : But mostly just punches in the gut? [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, yeah, mostly just punches in the gut. But such good punches. Just really well-landed.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Surgical precision. You can’t see it, but I’m kinda punching the air right now. So yeah—

DELAYNE : [Laughs] You’re swimming?

DARKWICCAN : So yeah, surgical—

DELAYNE : Oh wait, sorry [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, swimming. [Laughs] Very nice call back to Buffy, nice one.

DELAYNE : Okay [laughs] Okay, there’s another one that occurs on this fic.

DARKWICCAN : A reference to Buffy?

DELAYNE : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : Oh!

DELAYNE : “We have to save the world! Must be Tuesday,” Dolls deadpanned. 

DARKWICCAN : [Chuckles] Oh.

DELAYNE : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : How did I totally forget about that?

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Of course, I screenshot and highlighted that one ‘coz, you know, classic.

DARKWICCAN : Yes.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : So [laughs] as you know, the first half of this show is dedicated to talking about the fic. In this case, we kinda talked around the fic, but that’s because it’s so good, you guys. I only wanted to spoil one major thing about it.

BOTH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : But, yeah, no. Then the second half of the show, we talk to the author of the fic, so of course that means we’ll be talking to Able_Jack after this break. But, yeah, I just—you guys, I can’t, I can’t emphasize enough how much I love this story and how dangerous it is. So, put on your PPE and—

BOTH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : If you don’t know by now, friends, that PPE stands for Personal Protective Equipment, now you know.

DELAYNE : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : And stand 6 feet away from your [laughs] screen and read this story because it is fantastic.

BOTH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : So, that’s “The Deeps and The Days” by Able_Jack. I’ve left my poor co-host in the dust, again.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : I apologize to everyone, and Delayne. But Delayne, I’m gonna make it up to you, because guess what? You get to tell us

[CONTENT CENSORED. PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT]

MUSIC: Chris Christodoulou, Double Fucking Rainbow

DARKWICCAN : And welcome back, everybody, to the Earp Fiction Addiction Podcast dedicated entirely to Wynonna Earp fanfiction. I am your host, DarkWiccan, and with me is my wonderful co-host…

DELAYNE : Hi, it’s Delayne!

DARKWICCAN : And we are super excited to have with us today the author of the incredible work that we discussed prior to the break, “The Deeps And The Days,” which we decided to remain super vague-book-y on. We really, we’re not trying to give anything away but you know what?

DELAYNE : [Chuckles]

DARKWICCAN : It’s the second segment and author—the author’s prerogative to if you wanna spoil stuff, you are more than welcome to. Everybody had at least 30 seconds to go and read the story. So…

BOTH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : So, Able_Jack, welcome to the show [laughs]

ABLE_JACK : Hello, citizens.

DELAYNE AND DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Thank you so much for taking time out of your very busy ship schedule to join us today.

ABLE_JACK : No problem.

DARKWICCAN : Are you broadcasting from the waves or are you on land right now?

ABLE_JACK : I am on land. I [inaudible]

DARKWICCAN : You’re on land. Okay.

DELAYNE AND DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : That would be fun if you were—just pretend that you’re on the waves just a.) ‘coz it’s funny and b.) [laughs]

ABLE_JACK : Mostly that would be [imitating engine sounds] 

DELAYNE AND DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : We’d just hear the engines humming the entire time we wouldn’t really be able to hear you, is that--?

ABLE_JACK : Yeah.

DELAYNE AND DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : So, we know that you work on a ship. We know that you’re a communications officer, so knowing that you’re a communications officer, I’m expecting this interview to be fantastic.

ABLE_JACK : Well, mostly, I yell at people so that’s my level of communication.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Okay, okay. Well, hopefully you don’t feel the need to yell at us, but, you know, if the need arises [laughs]

ABLE_JACK : Unlikely.

DARKWICCAN : You know, you’re welcome to. Unlikely, okay.

DELAYNE : Some people are into that [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : That’s true, but that’s a whole other episode, Delayne, that’s a different episode.

ALL : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Let’s—let’s stick with this episode.

DELAYNE : That sounds great [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Okay. So, Able_Jack, you are a relatively prolific author. You’ve got quite a few stories posted to AO3 across three different fandoms so I have to inquire what brought you to the Wynonna Earp fandom.

ABLE_JACK : Uh, lust hormones, I have to say. I was, uh watching Youtube--

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] 

ABLE_JACK : And I found a super cut of Wynonna Earp, and I was intrigued.

DELAYNE AND DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, you know, I can relate to that. I can relate to that.

DELAYNE : Yup, probably the same super cut that brought quite a few people over.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, most likely, most likely, yes. Well, I’m glad that you were watching Youtube that day and that you—that super cut came across your dash so that you could bless us with your amazing, incredible writing skills. Right from the outset, your storytelling has been just top shelf, my friend. So, I—and when this particular story that we’re talking about today, “The Deeps And The Days,” came across my dashboard, I was immediately enraptured with it. So, I am thrilled that we’re able to chat with you about it today.

ABLE_JACK : Happy to be here.

DELAYNE AND DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Oh, awesome.

DELAYNE : Uh, how about I start this off then.

DARKWICCAN : Go for it. Kick us off, Delayne.

DELAYNE : [laughs] Uh, I wanna know, what was the seed of inspiration for this fic?

DARKWICCAN : Nice play on words there, Delayne.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

ABLE_JACK : I just, I had in my mind the—near the end of the fic there’s a scene where Nicole and Waverly are out in the dessert, or salt flats, or whatever we’re calling it, in the truck, kind of having a date and they were talking about philosophical things and I thought Waverly was probably being brought to the point of death where some deep, life-changing event. And the whole fic really kind of evolved around that. The actual choosing to follow the canon and the possession story line was just the part in the show where I think they’re making the antidote and it’s just a bunch of commonly found herbs was dumb and even as [inaudible]

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

ABLE_JACK : Setting out in the fix it, but I thought it can be elaborated on.

DARKWICCAN : Let me tell you what, I honestly think the way that you retold that storyline from season 2 was a stroke of absolute genius and I’m not just saying that. I don’t just throw the G word around. It was truly inspired and one of those moments where it’s like, “man, I wish that Emily was able to hire our fanfic authors just because the idea was so brilliantly executed.” So bravo, my friend, to you know, where it started from where it ended, just brilliant. Brilliant handling of the story.

ABLE_JACK : Well, thank you.

DARKWICCAN : Oh, absolutely. So something we sort of danced around on the first segment was the nature of what the goo became. I was really doing my best to avoid giving the game away there but I’m going to now. So sorry everybody. Hope you read it in the 30-second break. So—

ALL : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : So, ultimately, the goo that infects Waverly takes to a form of a type of a blood cancer. And, you seem to really be writing from a place of either experience, or knowledge. So, my question, therefore, is were you portraying it from a—were you portraying living withand treating a cancer diagnosis from experience, or was it just research?

ABLE_JACK : Uh, it was pure research.

DARKWICCAN : Wow.

ABLE_JACK : I certainly didn’t do it justice. I read a bunch of peer reviewed articles, I think that’s where I started, and then I found this great series on hematopoiesis on Youtube? And this guy, with his amazing Russian accent that I really enjoyed listening to. He’s got like 200 videos that basically explains your blood from start to finish and that was incredibly helpful. And then I did a bunch of research, I think, on statistics and survival rates ‘coz obviously I had to bring Waverly kind of to the point of really not being okay.

DARKWICCAN : Uh-huh.

ABLE_JACK : And what sort of path does that need with the karyotype and stuff like that. So no, it was—it was pure research.

DARKWICCAN : That’s incredible. I mean, ‘coz you captured everything. You know, I unfortunately do know from experience and you captured everything. I—in fact to a point where I was startled and deeply, deeply affected. I’ve never been as affected by a story as this. I mean, I actually reached out to Delayne. Delayne remembers this and I was like, “oh my god, this story is like killing me, but I have to keep reading it because it’s--”

ABLE_JACK : Yeah, my major goal is to, you know, not use it as titillation. To actually portray what it must really be like, and it’s nice to know that even though I really don’t have the experience, I got there.

DARKWICCAN : You got there. I mean, even Waverly’s suffering, you captured.

ABLE_JACK : Uh-huh.

DARKWICCAN : Pretty on the nose.

DELAYNE : Yeah, your research skills are extremely impressive

DARKWICCAN : Not only that, but you take—the ability to take that information and then translate it into a relatable storyline is really impressive.

DELAYNE : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : Because, I mean, we all can do the research, but it’s what do we do with that and how do we use that information once we have it. You know, so, so excellent work [chuckles]

ABLE_JACK : Thank you.

DELAYNE : Yes, thank you for putting in the research and for translating it so, so well. I want to ask about your chapter titles ‘coz you’ve already mentioned some philosophical things, and your chapter titles too. It includes philosophy, Latin, Science, even song lyrics and titles. So, do you have a favorite, a least favorite? Tell me more about the titles.

ABLE_JACK : Uh, well, it didn’t really—I wasn’t going down the title route until I hit chapter 9, I think, which is “Don’t Fear The Reaper,” which I did just entirely to screw with people.

ALL : [Laughs]

ABLE_JACK : And then I had to go back and find chapter titles for the rest of them and it was, surprisingly, it was one of the hardest parts of it. I think naming it, and then finding the chapter titles were incredibly difficult. So, I thought about it a lot. So my favorite is definitely “Don’t Fear The Reaper.” I think my least favorite is probably chapter ten “Okay in the end” ‘coz I was just tired of thinking at that point and people had liked the theme of—

DELANE : [Laughs]

ABLE_JACK : You know, it’s gonna be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it may not be what you were hoping for so I just gave up.

ALL : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Love the honesty. Love the honesty.

DELAYNE : Yup [laughs] I find titling things difficult as well. DW has helped me a lot [laughs] in many, many of my fics. I think even before when I did Willow and Tara fics. So.

ABLE_JACK : Yeah, it’s difficult to summarize things into, you know, two or three words. 

DELAYNE : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, it’s one of those things where I—I have this bizarre talent for summary and title? You know, and…

DELAYNE : And puns? [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : So it’s funny, I’ve seen this come up on the Twitter feed quite often where I will tweet out a link to a fic that I’m recommending, with a little, you know, blurb, summary, which is usually five words or less. And the author will come at me and go, “damn it!”

ALL : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : “Why didn’t I come to you for my summary first?” and I’m like, “listen, we all have our skills. I happen to be particularly skilled at writing summaries, and you happen to be particularly skilled at writing excellent fics! So you keep doing your thing [laughs] and I will do my little, itty, bitty bit over here.” So.

ALL : [Laughs]

Able_Jack : It’s great though, it’s like the unsung hero of the fic world.

DARKWICCAN AND DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Ah, you know, it’s just a quirky, quirky, ability that I have. I don’t question it. I just go with it. ‘Coz titles are hard, man. Listen, I can relate to writing chapter titles. It gets really hard, I mean especially if you have a ton of chapters. There’s one Willow/Tara fic I was writing where I started off titling each chapter, and then I think I got six or eight chapters in and my brain just went [ph] boing! It was gone. It was just like [chuckles] the spring just ruptured, and I just wrote “chapter 8” [laughs] I don’t know anymore. I don’t know. This is the chapter. Then I stopped titling the chapters after that, so [laughs]

DELAYNE : [Laughs] I think that [inaudible]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah [laughs] But anyway, let’s go back to your chapters, Able_Jack. Let’s get back to your story here. So, I adore the way that you approached Waverly in the story. You remembered that she is a genius, and I feel like this is something that we lose a lot. Not just in fanfic, but also in the series. I think the canon series itself forgets sometimes that Waverly is brilliant, or it’s not so much that they forget that she’s brilliant. They know that she’s brilliant or working from that starting point, but they forget to demonstrate her brilliance. You know, I mean, there are lots of missed opportunities, I think I can, you know, point to from the show that show, “oh man that was a missed opportunity for Waverly to show her brilliance.” The one that stands out for me is the issue with Bulshar’s ring having the writing on it and why was it Jeremy who figured that out when Waverly is a known polyglot who speaks Latin fluently. So [laughs] so that kinda annoyed me. Uh, oop.

DELAYNE : [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Uh, yeah.

DELAYNE : I didn’t even think about that [inaudible] [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : So, but anyway, just these opportunities to showcase Waverly’s brilliance just kinda go [ph] voom! Zooming by, but you didn’t let that happen, Able_Jack, in your storytelling. You made sure that we knew that Waverly is brilliant, knows that she’s brilliant, and uses that brilliance, and she uses that brilliance against her own oncologist, which I was just like, “yes! I wish I had had that kinda brain power when I was goin’ through treatment” uhm [laughs]

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : So, that was my favorite thing that you wrote about Waverly. What was your favorite aspect of Waverly’s character to explore into writing? 

ABLE_JACK : Okay, so for me what I enjoyed writing about Waverly was the tension she could hold between her fear and I guess her optimism, ‘coz she is an optimistic [sic] chirpy kinda character, and she knows full well that really dire things are happening to her. But the whole, you know, life-before-death world-without-end kind of motivation inside her was what I really wanted to get at.

DARKWICCAN : Yes, yes. And that is such a vital thing for so many people and individuals who deal with a cancer diagnosis is you have to see past the diagnosis, and you can’t allow it to consume your world. So the fact that Waverly is a naturally more optimistic person in spite of everything [chuckles]. Uh, you know, I love the fact that you, yeah absolutely, that you took that element of her. And I love what you just said, the tension between the danger of what’s happening to her, you know, coupled with her optimism is, you just—you’re just a brilliant writer, Able_Jack.

ABLE_JACK : [Chuckles]

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Throwing up my hands here.

ABLE_JACK : It’s a great compromise to have her be smarter than everybody ‘coz then she gets to explain it to everybody ‘coz—I got stuck for a long time on how to make sure to keep—the readers had enough information, you know the scientific technical information to know that this is really bad, without overwhelming and just being didactic and, you know, paragraphs upon paragraphs of explanation. So, having Nicole there at the oncologist meeting so that she could be the one learning where Waverly already knew what was going on was, it’s great. I stumbled upon it and it was like the heavens opened up and everything was better.

DARKWICCAN : It was just terrific, and yeah, you basically had Nicole serve as the audience in those moments and, uhm. Yeah.

ABLE_JACK : Right.

DELAYNE : That was actually one of my favorite scenes. I [sic] screencaptured it because your line about Nicole not knowing what karyotype means but knowing being special on the cancer ward is not good.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah.

DELAYNE : That’s was a brilliant line.

ABLE_JACK : Yeah, that one came from... Sometimes, you know, you just sit there and stare at the screen and type something like “insert being clever here” but that one just populated

DELAYNE AND DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : It’s self-populating.

ABLE_JACK : [Inaudible]

DARKWICCAN : But I also love that—in those moments you had Nicole just adore Waverly’s genius, you know, and just adore watching Waverly tear down her expert. You know, tear down the expert in the room.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Because it’s true. It’s true. When you’re talking with a doctor, you know, and you’re trying to ask what’s—at least sound to you, knowledge-based questions, and they give you that “oh sweetie” you know, kind of response. It’s like [snorts] you know, you just wanna…

DELAYNE AND DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : It’s like, excise me, I know I’m sick, can you humor me? So the fact that Waverly was able to take down her oncologist and then Nicole just sitting there, just glowing with adoration [laughs]. The oncologist has been Waverly Earp’ed.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] So, your characters are, I’d say, spot on. And the way that you switched between the points of view. When you’re in Wynonna, or focused Nicole, or in Waverly’s head, it’s—you make it seem super easy. So which character is the most difficult for you to voice?

ABLE_JACK : You know, I never had problems with individual characters, when I had to interact, I find—well, no, that’s not true. I find Wynonna pretty difficult to find a line with her between just being a jerk and being vulnerable inside that [sic] jerkness that they get in the show. That was—I’m not entirely certain I captured that one well. But I found—

DELAYNE : Oh, I think you did.

ABLE_JACK : Well that’s good. Good to know. I found writing Nicole and Wynonna really easy, and, funny enough, Nicole and Waverly was more difficult just ‘coz there has to be that depth of emotion and all the subtext going on between them that’s, that’s can be difficult to write.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, Wynonna is one of those characters where you really have to find that perfect balance, as you say, between jerkiness and vulnerability, and I think you succeeded.

ABLE_JACK : Well [sic] thank.

DARKWICCAN : You’re [sic] welc.

DELAYNE AND DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Sorry [laughs] you cut out at the end of that, so that’s why I just kind of... okay [laughs]. So speaking of characters, and making choices with characters, let’s talk about Dolls for a minute.

ABLE_JACK : Okay, let’s do it.

DARKWICCAN : Okay. So, as well know, the character of Dolls’ departure from the canon series was a bit fraught. There was a lot going on behind the scenes that kind of affected the way that the writer’s room approached it. And there was, I feel, like an element of rushing, [sic] rushiness involved that maybe meant that better ideas weren’t given enough time to percolate to the top of the barrel for them to utilize, to justify his exit. So your take on Dolls’ departure from the story here was so inspired, man. I mean, just absolutely brilliant because you made his exit, I think, worthy of him, in that instead of it just being some random [sic] baddo that Dolls takes on, well, to be redundant, kind of randomly. It was an old foe that had pursued him and had been in his life since prior to the beginning of the canon storytelling. So, you really, really, came at this in such a thoughtful and, I know I’m just gonna toss “brilliant” around but I’m just gonna do it again ‘coz apparently my mental thesaurus is broken. Just brilliant [laughs] way to tackle it and give him a way out. Did you set out to revise the canon here? Or did it just sort of end up this way organically as you’re writing the story?

ABLE_JACK : Oh, it’s definitely organic. I hadn’t originally intended to bring Dolls back at all, and I can’t remember what exactly the pivot point was when I realized I needed to bring him back. But I wanted Juan Carlo in there, and I wanted Wynonna to think that she needed to let Waverly die in order to save the world, and I wanted the reveal, I guess, that it was Dolls that needed to die, which is when I think I realized I needed to bring Dolls back, and it actually involved going back and doing a little bit of rewriting. So, moral of the story, don’t post fics that you haven’t finished.

DELAYNE AND DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : That’s a good piece of advice, my friend, good piece of advice.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : And what moment when you were writing did the light bulb go off?

ABLE_JACK : [ph] Ooh, aagh, hmmm. I think when Juan Carlo was talking to Wynonna about the trolley dilemma, you know that classic, you know, moral philosophy.

DARKWICCAN : Oh, yes.

ABLE_JACK : What-do-I-do-here thing. I can’t remember what my original conception for killing the demon was. You know, I can’t pronounce his name. Is it [ph] Miktin? Mictian? I don’t know.

DARKWICCAN : Mictian. Mictian, yeah.

ABLE_JACK : Mictian, ah. I think I was in chapter seven, or something like that and trying to figure out how it’s all gonna resolve and my original idea just—it wasn’t gonna work and I don’t even truly remember what it was, and I just thought, “hey! Why don’t you bring Dolls back?” And I also wanted to explore about what’s going on between Wynonna, Doc and Dolls and what the hell are they doing there. And I don’t think I necessarily got into it quite as much as I wanted to, but there’s at least hints that they’re doing freaky things with each other.

DELAYNE AND DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : I don’t know how to respond to that [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Well, I think it’s sort of accepted that there were some getting-freaky-with-it stuff happening.

DELAYNE : Right, right. More than—

DARKWICCAN : Yup, yup, yup.

DELAYNE AND DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : Uh, a question that I do have, though.

ABLE_JACK : Sure.

DELAYNE : Is, uhm, is Daisy inspired by a real cow? Do you know a Daisy?

ABLE_JACK : [Laughs] I don’t. I grew up in the country and it’s a place—small town America where the men are men, and the sheep are nervous, so I know a lot of, um

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

ABLE_JACK : A lot of livestock, but no, not as pets. I can’t—we came from my—my original—the first story that I wrote got into details, uhm.

DELAYNE : Yeah [laughs]

ABLE_JACK : And I just liked it.

DELAYNE : People just wanted to be-

ABLE_JACK : Yeah, people just liked her so I thought, “you know, hey, why not?” but the timelines of the two stories were never gonna match up and I wasn’t even gonna try.

DELAYNE : Yeah.

ABLE_JACK : When kinda wholesale ported her over in the, you know, the snap-your-fingers-magic kinda way. 

DARKWICCAN : Hey, author’s prerogative, right? You get to do what you want in your story.

ABLE_JACK : Yeah. Yup. I think I brought her back because, I needed something for Nicole and Waverly to do while they were talking about their fight from the Black Badge grouping cutting Nicole off.

DELAYNE : Yes. That was also a brilliant scene. You really brought us something that we did not get to see and resolved it extremely well.

ABLE_JACK : Yeah, you know when you dive between canon, you realize as you’re watching season 2 episode 2 for the 14th time that TV actually makes no sense at all. So, I think Nicole and Waverly have their little tête-à-tête (their fight)—Nicole walks off and then suddenly she’s in Waverly’s bedroom reading the diary and you’re just like, “wait a minute?” And it makes perfect sense, the first time or even the second or third time that you watch that episode, but by the 14th time, you have to realize that there is something wrong here.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] Eventually.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

ABLE_JACK : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : Something—clicks or doesn’t click into place and you’re like, “wait a minute?” [Laughs]

ABLE_JACK : The other one that really bothered me was the episode where Waverly is starting to really show signs that she’s been possessed and Wynonna’s wearing her coat at Black Badge, and Nicole is eating her sad gluten-free pizza. So, I think Wynonna pulls the knife out of the jacket pocket and says, “oh, this was Waverly” and Nicole just kinda stares at her and then walks off, which in real life would not happen, but the first time I watched the episode, you know I never questioned it.

DARKWICCAN : Right. It’s like, “of course Waverly will be keeping a b—” Was it a butter knife? I don’t remember. Just…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : What kind of knife was it? I don’t remember.

DELAYNE: Yeah—

DARKWICCAN : It’s like, “of course Waverly will be keeping a random butter knife in her pocket” [laughs] like, “of course everybody does.”

ABLE_JACK : And Nicole will be worried about that, but not to the point of talking to Wynonna. She’d just turn and leave.

DARKWICCAN : Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it’s something that she would—

DELAYNE : My next rewatch is gonna be very interesting now [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : But I also loved—you know, just how you would dress stuff in the writing from Waverly’s point of view. Like the famous scene in episode two where they—where Nicole and Waverly finally [ph] effs you know, make love for the first time. But I just love Waverly’s point of view. Her thinking that you write, like “it seemed like sex, but it didn’t seem like something Waverly can stop and ask about” [laughs] like, because yeah, if it was your first time and your only experience has been with men and you know, I mean, it can feel, I guess, like elements might be missing, but you know we make up for it, so.

DELAYNE AND DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : I also like the fact that her mind got stuck on her ex-boyfriend and she’s like, “stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it” because Waverly just lives in her head and that would totally happen [laughs]

ABLE_JACK : Yeah. I, uhm, that is—that whole being like is-this-sex-are-we-having-sex-right-now is from my life ‘coz I work mostly with men, of course, and mostly 18 to 25 year-olds.

DARKWICCAN : Oh, geez.

ABLE_JACK : And they have sex a lot.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

ABLE_JACK : They do it a lot, sometimes with each other to unfortunate ends, but mostly with people outside, and they just really don’t quite understand how sex without a penis might actually function.

DELAYNE AND DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

ABLE_JACK : I mean, they’ve got it. They get it in their brains but they don’t really believe it is sex. So I was probably thinking about that when I wrote that. But yeah, Waverly will probably be like, “are we doing this? Is this happening? Wait. How about now? Is it happening now?”

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah [laughs]

DELAYNE : Well, I guess with your ability to get into the character’s heads is genius.

ABLE_JACK : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : ‘Coz it—another brilliant—this whole fic has been just amazing. Your writing is amazing, and I adore you. Just wanna put that out there.

ABLE_JACK : Wow.

DARKWICCAN : I mean, safe to say you wouldn’t be on the show if we didn’t adore you, but we do also want to remind you constantly of our adoration. Yeah.

ABLE_JACK : I don’t function with feelings well.

DELAYNE AND DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : But you write them perfectly, so.

DELAYNE : Right?

ABLE_JACK : I do. It’s weird, isn’t it?

DARKWICCAN : Yeah [laughs]

ABLE_JACK : Repressed them so violently.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] They have to sneak out somewhere?

DARKWICCAN : So, do you get much writing done when you’re out on the ocean free?

ABLE_JACK : It really depends on our watch schedule. Sometimes we stay in 6 and 6, which is 6 hours on, 6 hours off twice a day, and then I do nothing but stand watch, and sometimes we dog the watches so then I stand 6 hours total during the day. Usually a 4-hour chunk and a 2-hour chunk. But it really depends on what’s happening with the ship. If we’re doing a response, obviously we’re not, you know, it’s all hands on deck. I did some of this on the ship, I think, probably chapter 6 and 7 was when we were deployed underway.

DARKWICCAN : All this lingo, I’m having a [laughs].

DELAYNE : [Laughs] I think [inaudible]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, yeah, I think—now I’m picking it up, yup, yup, yup.

ABLE_JACK : Okay.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah [laughs]

ABLE_JACK : Even for us it’s just as perplexing trust me.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] So I do have to ask, though. “Dog the watch,” what is that? What is that, what is that term? Is that shorthand for something?

ABLE_JACK : Uh, gosh. Uh, no, it literally means dog the watch.

DARKWICCAN : [Snorts]

ABLE_JACK : Hm, how am I gonna do this? Okay, so, if you break the day after a certain chunks, and one of the traditional chunks is to stand a mid-to-4 watch, a 4-to-8 and an 8-to-12. So you—if you’re in the mid watch, you stand from midnight to 4am and then you stand watch again from noon until 1600. And that—if you do that for a long time, people start to go weird so they “dog” the evening watch so that you only stand 2 hours to watch. It gives people a little bit more uninterrupted rest time and it makes the meal times easier.

DARKWICCAN : I’m just saying—I’m just curious as to where the term “dog,” like why is it called “dogging watch”?

ABLE_JACK : I don’t know.

DARKWICCAN : Okay [laughs]. 

DELAYNE : ‘Coz the go doggone crazy.

DARKWICCAN : There you go [laughs]. Going doggone crazy [laughs]

ABLE_JACK : [Inaudible] From the royal navy or something, and 1600s, and Lord Dawson, and it’s lost to the sands of time.

DARKWICCAN : Oh, okay.

DELAYNE AND DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Fair. That’s fair. That’s fair. Well, Able_Jack, this has been so much fun chatting with you. You’re actually out first author interview of the season for season 4, so it’s—I’m so glad we had to start off with the—with such a delightful guest.

ABLE_JACK : Well, this was, in fact, delightful.

DARKWICCAN : Yay! [Laughs]

DELAYNE : Yeah [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Mission—

DELAYNE : Hold it there, I think we just got some emotion from you.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

ABLE_JACK : No. No.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Mission accomplished. Uh, okay, well before we let you go, I know you’re not on the ship right now, so I can’t say some really, poorly, mangled, ship, sea-worthy pun, so I’m gonna skip that and [laughs] But I will say, I hope that this never happens to you as you are on a ship, but if you were to be stranded on a desert island and have only one fic to read, what is it?

ABLE_JACK : Uh, that is a hard question. I bet people struggle with this one. Uh…

DELAYNE : A lot, yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Yep.

ABLE_JACK : [ph] Ugh, I would say “The Sum Of Total Living” by doctoruth.

DARKWICCAN : Ahh, excellent choice.

ABLE_JACK : Just ‘coz it’s phenomenal. I’ll never be that smart, or clever, or be able to weave so many elements together into anything ever.

DARKWICCAN : I tell ya, that work is really an opus. It is, uhm—I—yeah, I—even having talked to doctoruth, I still don’t know how she did it.

DELAYNE AND DARKWICCAN : [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : So, excellent choice and I will of course be including that link to “The Sum Total Of Living” in the show notes for this episode. Able_Jack, thank you again so much for joining us and I look forward to seeing whatever fic awesomeness you grace us with next.

ABLE_JACK : Well, thanks for having me. It was a lot of fun.

MUSIC: Don’t Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Maddigan

DARKWICCAN: And that's all for this episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Thanks for joining us.

Tremendous thanks to Able_Jack for chatting with us about their work the Deeps and the Days!

Thanks also to our announcer Byron Tidwell for our intro 

Background music for the episode was:

A Proper Story and Path to Glory by Darren Korb

Double Fucking Rainbow by Chris Christodoulou

and the outro music is Don't Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Madigan

If you have questions or comments for the podcast you can find us on Twitter at E-F-A underscore Podcast and on Facebook at E-F-A Podcast. 

And you can find all of our episodes, old and new, at our website E-F-A Podcast dot com.

And if you're listening on iTunes, please take a moment to rate and review our show.

Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you'll join us again next time for another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Until then, READ MORE FIC!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Episodes post Mondays at 8am PST
> 
> Visit our Website http://efapodcast.com/ for all episodes old and new!
> 
> Follow us on Twitter: @efa_podcast
> 
> And on Facebook: facebook.com/EFAPodcast


	3. Let's Talk About Sex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get a little naughty as DW and Delayne chat with two of the finest smutfic purveyors in the fandom: Baggerheda and Mischieftess!

[Click HERE to Listen!](http://efapodcast.com/lets-talk-about-sex-0)

Read Their Fics!

[Baggerheda on AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaggerHeda/pseuds/BaggerHeda)

[Mischieftess on AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mischieftess/pseuds/Mischieftess)

Episode Artwork by Chantal Zeegers

Episode transcript by ApproxTenCats

Ep 403: Let’s Talk About Sex

[ph] – Indicates preceding word has been spelled phonetically [sic] – Indicates preceding word has been transcribed verbatim

MUSIC : Write My Story by Olly Anna

ANNOUNCER GUY : You've tuned in to the _Earp Fiction Addiction_ , a fan podcast all about _Wynonna Earp_ fanfiction. Join our intrepid host DarkWiccan and Delayne as they dive deep into the sometimes sweet, sometimes spicy, and always varied world of fanfiction for the _Wynonna Earp_ fandom.

MUSIC : A Proper Story by Darren Korb

DARKWICCAN: Thanks Announcer Guy and welcome everybody to the _Earp Fiction Addiction_ , the podcast dedicated entirely to _Wynonna Earp_ fanfiction. I am your host DarkWiccan, and with me dressed out in her sunday best domination gear is my delightful co-host.

DELAYNE: [somewhat sultry voice] Hey, it’s Delayne.

DARKWICCAN: [laughs] Is that your top voice?

DELAYNE: [laughs] No comment.

DARKWICCAN: Well let’s switch things up here, heyooo. [laughs] You know, I think this whole quarantine situation has got us a bit punchy.

DELAYNE: [laughs] You are definitely on top of your pun game that’s for sure.

DARKWICCAN: [laughter eventually winds down] Hyee.

DELAYNE: [laughs] Anyway, aren’t we here to talk about something?

DARKWICCAN: We are, we are here to talk about something. But hey before we dive into what we’re here to talk about there’s something I’ve been forgetting to talk about the first couple of episodes of the season and that is the fact that [CONTENT CENSORED, PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT] Also update on the “Fuck Labels” t-shirt fundraiser, we raised from the time that we started fundraising until the end of last year, we raised $75 and that’s actually really impressive considering how very little we make off the products that we sell on Redbubble. So I doubled that amount and donated $150 in total to the Gender Justice League, so I was really thrilled to be able to do that. So thank you to everyone who bought a “Fuck Labels” t-shirt and a “Fuck Labels” item from the Redbubble store. Any money that we made from that went directly to Gender Justice League for a total of $150 to this fine organisation, so thank you so much. Those products are still available for sale in the Redbubble store if you would like to buy a shirt that says “Fuck Labels” on it and we’ve attributed the quote line to Dominique. So that’s happened. And I’m sorry that I forgot to do that. [CONTENT CENSORED, PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT]

We’re just taking the nets by storm.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: But enough of that. Let’s get down to why we’re really here today which I hinted at based on Delayne’s attire for this recording.

DELAYNE: I have a lot of outfit changes, I’m rather impressed.

DARKWICCAN: You do, your wardrobe is expansive. Absolutely massive.

DELAYNE: [laughs] That’s what she said.

DARKWICCAN: [laughs] Heyo. So yes, we are giggly and stupid today because we’re talking about smut-fic. Smut, smut, smut, that delightful and wonderful thing that was initially the cornerstone of fandom fanfiction and yeah, and it continues to be a major player in the world of fanfiction.

DELAYNE: I was going to say a major staple but that just sounds, the wordings a little. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: I think player, you know.

DELAYNE: Yeah, the wording, yours is much better.

DARKWICCAN: So let’s talk about sex.

DELAYNE: We haven’t talked about this before?

DARKWICCAN: We have. But in this instance we’re going to talk about two specific authors who specialise in this style of writing. One we had on this show before talking about this very topic and that’s BaggerHeda, aka @Boo_in_LA if you’re on Twitter. And the other we’ve had on the show to talk about other fics of hers, but this is the first time that we’ll be talking specifically about the artform that is writing smut-fic. And that would be Mischieftess, aka @smugmischief on the twitters. So yeah, we’re going to be talking about a couple of their works before we talk to them in the second half of the show, and Delayne why don’t you kick us off.

DELAYNE: Well you know it seems like a good time to have some sunday brunch.

DARKWICCAN: Brunch.

DELAYNE: Brunch. Boo’s ability to take a prompt and just run with it really. It's an amazing ability and I love that about Boo. And this is one of those opportune times where the brunch became a thing at Clexacon on the _Lost Girl_ panel...

DARKWICCAN: Mhmm.

DELAYNE: And then while we were playing Cards Against Purgatory we had a lot of players and there wasn’t a quick winner, it was lasting a long time.

DARKWICCAN: As lesbians are known to do. Continue.

DELAYNE: And of course the brunch came up and there’s always talk of a certain Canadian food that is very popular, that would be poutine.

DARKWICCAN: I was going to say bacon?

DELAYNE: [laughs] Anyway, so this round of Cards Against Purgatory, they called it the tantric poutine brunch. And therefore Boo wrote _Sunday Brunch_ in honour of #tantricpoutinebrunch. And it’s a delightfully smutty breakfast story that, they do eventually get to eating the food, that doesn’t always happen in some of these. Really when it comes to summarising smut-fic, I mean I have trouble summarising fics in the first place, but it is, it’s just some sex and some poutine. I don’t really know what else more to say about that, do you have. do you feel like you can add anything?

DARKWICCAN: I have to say this is probably the only fic I’ve read that had a _9 ½ Weeks_ reference.

DELAYNE: Right. And I feel like probably not a whole lot in the audience may get that.

DARKWICCAN: Well, _9 ½ Weeks_ is a movie that starred [shudders] Mickey Rourke and basically there was a food sex sequence I recall correctly where one character feeds another character food, sexily.

DELAYNE: And this is 100 percent less Mickey Rourke.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, this is a Mickey Rourke-free zone, this fic is. But yeah, I genuinely don’t. that’s the thing about smut-fic right? I mean basically the whole point of the fic is the smut. Plot isn’t really a major feature of these stories, that’s why it’s also called “porn without plot”.

DELAYNE: Or “plot, what plot?” if you don’t want to use the word porn in your tweet and get, you know, flagged...

DARKWICCAN: Well, PWP, right “plot, what plot?” They both have the same...

DELAYNE: We kinda already mentioned that in an episode.

DARKWICCAN: We did. A season one episode. But I mean it’s like, yeah, what more do you say. It’s a great story. It’s Boo at her best, writing delicious, delicious smut.

DELAYNE: [laughs] Well said.

DARKWICCAN: What do you think it is? Okay, let me ask you this Delayne. What do you think it is about the way that Boo writes smut that makes it so exceptional?

DELAYNE: Oh my goodness, I feel put on the spot.

DARKWICCAN: I don’t know why you would feel put on the spot.

DELAYNE: You know I’m terrible with words, that’s why I’m a podcaster and not so much a writer anymore. [laughs] Wait, that doesn’t work either. What? [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Listen, I’m just standing back and letting this happen.

DELAYNE: Oh dear. Um, there’s something about Boo’s ability to sneak in these cute references or random tidbits but also, I don’t know, it’s just well done, and it’s funny as well as endearing and sexy and charming. It’s just wonderful.

DARKWICCAN: Here’s what I think.

DELAYNE: Okay.

DARKWICCAN: My opinion.

DELAYNE: Yes, please.

DARKWICCAN: Is that Boo takes these characters and puts them into very relatable real-life situations that are easy to imagine our characters in. It’s not some implausible scenario that we find them in. Everybody for the most part eats breakfast, right. If it’s a late breakfast at that point it’s a brunch. Everyone at some point or other attempts to sexily feed food to their partner, whether or not it goes well is up to the moment at hand. But she doesn’t shy away from embracing the silliness that can come out of these sort of awkwardly contrived scenarios that can happen in real life. Do you know what I mean?

DELAYNE: Yes. Well said.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah. The fact that she makes a point of pointing out Nicole is not wearing sexy underwear. She’s wearing rather silly boxer shorts. Waverly being opposed to being blindfolded by Nicole’s bandana because she assumes it’s a handkerchief that’s been used. You know what I mean?

DELAYNE: [laughs] Yes.

DARKWICCAN: Things like that.

DELAYNE: Yeah, that is. um. [long pause] Sorry, you mentioned the underpants and Waverly being worried that she was helping the neighbour, was outside in her underwear. [laughs] Just like, “No, what why? I took my pants off after.”

DARKWICCAN: So Boo is really good at taking these simple set-ups and making them fun and sexy and sweet and again relatable. Something that’s easily imagined and maybe something you might eventually try with your own partner because it doesn’t seem like something that’s so out there that you’d be intimidated by it, or even turned off by it.

DELAYNE: True.

DARKWICCAN: So that’s what I think [inaudible].

DELAYNE: Just copy and paste that. [laughs] I’ll just steal your words.

DARKWICCAN: But let’s jump from the relatable content of BaggerHeda’s aka Boo’s writing and jump to the fantastical smut of @Smugmischief aka Mischieftess. The story that I’ve picked out that she wrote is called _Howl_ , and it’s actually inspired by artist Scary Krystal who’s done quite a lot of _Wynonna Earp_ related artwork. She’s a professional artist, we feature her as our reverse sponsor a few times and she’s also a really really cool nice gal. She’s Canadian so of course. Someone commissioned Krystal to do a kind of a horny, porny Wayhaught werewolf scenario drawing. So Krystal has a patreon specifically for artwork that she can’t post on Twitter at large.

DELAYNE: The “After Dark”.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, Scary Krystal After Dark patreon, so she created some artwork of a wolven Nicole ravishing a damsel Red Riding Hood style Waverly, and Smug went, “I can write a fic about that.” And she did. And something that makes this unique because it’s fantastical that we’ve got werewolf Nicole. And it’s also fantastical in that it just skirts the edge of ABO fic in that according to ABO fic, particularly the alpha, if the alpha is a female she will grow an appendage for sexy times. And that is the case here. So that is very much a fantasy. But you know, [murmuring] strap-ons exist right.

DELAYNE: [laughs] I’ve heard they’re fairly common.

DARKWICCAN: They’re fairly common, that’s a thing that I've heard as well.

DELAYNE: You can go down to a store and buy them, or purchase them online.

DARKWICCAN: But also Smug is a fine purveyor of quality kink and that is definitely true in the story _Howl_ , this is very much a dom/sub scenario and Smug writes those situations exceptionally well. And with her experience writing ABO for her story _Enchanting the Knight Commander_ she has really mastered this genre of writing.

DELAYNE: Oh yeah.

DARKWICCAN: It’s really sexy man, it’s sexy. I like the fact that she has a point-of-view break. It starts off POV of Waverly and then goes to Nicole’s POV and then back to Waverly’s. So when she does a switch in POV she does a break with a little “HOWOWOWOWOOOOOO”. The characters aren’t saying it, no one's saying it it’s just dashes or asterisks or something, it’s just awoowoowoo.

DELAYNE: That’s adorable. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: I think what makes Smug an excellent smut author is that she does not shy away from kink, she embraces kink and as a result is able to introduce readers who may be a little afraid of certain types of kink, she is able to introduce these things to them in a way that is safe and enjoyable and not like, there are some fics out there man that are like, woah.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: And not a good woah. DELAYNE: Whereas Smug has like kink 101.

DARKWICCAN: Yes exactly. And you picked out a fic by her for today as well.

DELAYNE: I did, it was along the same lines as Boo’s. It was _Lazy Sundays_ where Waverly makes breakfast for Nicole at the homestead. She doesn’t quite finish making breakfast but she does finish.

DARKWICCAN: [drum noise indicating comedic moment] Badum ting.

DELAYNE: And it’s actually got three parts so sexy time in the kitchen is a fairly common theme, and this compared to other Smug fics this one’s a little fluffier. There’s always going to be at least a little bit of kink in Smug’s. I don’t think i’ve read pure fluff yet, you’ve got to have a little...

DARKWICCAN: This one has a little bit of. in fact it’s in the tags, “praise kink if you squint.”

DELAYNE: Well, I mean yeah that first one Nicole is full of praise for Waverly. Clearly Waverly enjoys that.

DARKWICCAN: Yes. You know what, who doesn’t? Right?

DELAYNE: Well, I mean, I’m a millennial so yes I require constant praise.

DARKWICCAN: We should remind our audience that millennials are in their thirties.

DELAYNE: Yes, I’m going to be thirty nine this year.

DARKWICCAN: I’m a Gen Xer. I missed by one year. I was born too soon for the millennial. And the Gen Xers, we’ve just been forgotten about.

DELAYNE: Yes, you have.

DARKWICCAN: Uh, thanks.

DELAYNE: I’m saying by what I’ve seen, all of the memes, and the headlines, no mention of you guys.

DARKWICCAN: We have gone off the rails here. [laughs]

DELAYNE: Anyway, so as much as I enjoy some nice smut I’m also a big fan of food so no shock that I find the Smug’s fic about breakfast, not exactly breakfast, but it has one of my favourite hilariously random moments, because I’m a bit of a tea snob. And of course it’s English Breakfast for Nicole, and Earl Grey for Waverly. But at one point there’s a sticky note and Earl has been replaced by Earp so really, it has me thinking: what, I need to create this blend of Earp Grey. So we have to have the bergamot because that’s what makes it a grey, but what other flavours?

DARKWICCAN: Well, you’d have to have, of course, well now you’re the tea snob so you’ll have to tell me, is bergamot a black tea?

DELAYNE: Bergamot is the flower.

DARKWICCAN: Bergamot is the flower, that’s what makes it really perfumy and gross. So...

DELAYNE: Exactly.

DARKWICCAN: So you have to have a basic black tea in there as well, but then I think you have to mix in some dried sweet tobacco, just the tiniest hint. Not enough that you’re relying on it for nicotine, just enough for the flavour profile.

DELAYNE: And see, tobacco for me, there’s a vanilla rooibos tea that reminds me of tobacco. It’s the vanilla in it, vanilla or cherry, kind of a woody smell, that would be good. So there we have it.

DARKWICCAN: Yep, Earp Grey tea.

DELAYNE: Earp Grey tea.

DARKWICCAN: You heard it here first folks. Well, now that we have successfully steered it away from the smut topic let's whip everybody back into shape as we move into the next segment of our show as we’ll be talking with both Boo and Smug as we’ll be talking in a little bit of a round table discussion the art of writing smut. So I hope you’ll join us for that. But before we go on we must introduce this week’s reverse sponsor. And I believe we’ve made an apropos selection this week. Delayne would you please tell us who this week’s sponsor is.

[CONTENT CENSORED, PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT]

MUSIC: The Stripper by David Rose

DARKWICCAN: And welcome back everybody to the _Earp Fiction Addiction_ , the podcast dedicated entirely to _Wynonna Earp_ fanfiction. I am your host DarkWiccan and with me in pasties and a garter belt and nothing else is my fabulous co-host...

DELAYNE: [laughs] Hi, it’s Delayne. I’m sorry, it’s really cold in here, can I get a jacket, maybe like a trenchcoat? I think that would be great.

DARKWICCAN: A trenchcoat? That would be good. You going out later?

DELAYNE: I might pop by and see someone.

DARKWICCAN: [laughs] Well this has been an utterly tit-illating episode of the show today and we are very excited to have with us two of the finest purveyors of smut in the _Wynonna Earp_ fandom. And that would of course be the delightful Boo.

BOO: Hello there.

DARKWICCAN: And the most exquisite Smug, Mischief, also known as Mischieftess.

SMUG: Hello.

DARKWICCAN: Welcome to you both, and thank you so much for taking time out of your busy writing schedules to join us today to chat about your favourite subject.

BOO: Well, thank you very much for having us, it’s a pleasure to be here.

SMUG: I know it’s delightful to be together again as well.

BOO: I haven’t seen you in far too long my friend.

SMUG: I’ve had a very. well we’ve had some amazing conversations and it’s been since last summer that we saw each other, so this is fantastic as well.

DARKWICCAN: Well I’m really happy to give you a platform to continue that conversation here on the podcast today.

DELAYNE: Man, I really missed out going to Expo didn’t I?

SMUG: Yeah, you did.

BOO: Yeah, next one, next one we’ll go.

DELAYNE: Okay.

DARKWICCAN: It’s in October so. well it’s now in October so mark a calendar. Start budgeting.

Delayne that was only to you, because we know the rest of us are going to Expo.

SMUG: If I can make it, I can’t guarantee anything unfortunately.

DARKWICCAN: Really? But you live there.

SMUG: Yeah, but my schedule in October is packed.

DELAYNE: Yeah, we’ll talk about it later.

BOO: We’ll talk about it later but also ‘Palooza is supposed to be October too so you know, everything is up in the air right now, so we’ll play it by ear and go with the flow I guess.

DELAYNE: I’ll just make a special trip just to see you Smug and I guess Boo you need to come along.

BOO: I think I do.

SMUG: Listen, let me know when and where and contact me ahead of time and I’m there.

DARKWICCAN: So before we get onto the main event I have to ask you both, how are you guys faring with the whole quarantine/self isolation/Covid-19 situation?

BOO: Well, I’ve been doing the social isolation thing, and my work situation is good and the only thing I run out of is anything dairy in my refrigerator, so I’m pretty well set. I hope everybody else is doing well. I’m healthy so far, knock wood, so thank you.

SMUG: I’m also doing pretty well, I do live closely to my seventy year old parents so I’m very worried about their health, and so I have been extremely careful. Work is proceeding as online as we can make it, so that’s all very good, and I have enough food, so I’m doing okay. The emotional toll is profound and hard to measure.

DELAYNE: Agree.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah.

SMUG: But I think a lot of people are dealing with this right now, a general lack of direction, lack of motivation to do the activities of daily life when you’re seeing the news every time you go to... For me Twitter is my happy place, so every time I go to my happy place there’s horrible stuff that’s on my feed, so escapism is the rule of the day, when I can indulge in it.

DARKWICCAN: And what better way to escape than into some hot, spicy, smutty fiction.

SMUG: Yes.

BOO: Yes, we need lots and lots of that.

DELAYNE: It’s definitely a happy place for many people.

DARKWICCAN: I gotta say Smug, I’m so looking forward to chapter two of your Werehaught fic that you posted today.

SMUG: Oh man, me too, literally I would have posted more of the fic I’ve written into chapter one except there wasn’t a good transition point between what I’m considering parts two and three.

DARKWICCAN: Three? Woo!

SMUG: See that’s the thing, I can finish part three or I can post part two and have a really awkward transition and so I think that part three will just have to be three thousand words, and that’s. I know that’s really a stretch for people to read that much of my writing and still enjoy it at the

end. But I think that if we all really gird our loins and button our garter belts we will survive. I trust that my audience will enjoy that.

BOO: It’s been totally delightful so far and I’m ready for eight thousand words of the smuttiest Werehaught you can give us, so go for it.

SMUG: Yes please, I’m having so much fun.

DARKWICCAN: Because you know that you and Scary Krystal are in a smut loop now.

DELAYNE: [laughs] No kidding, this is so glorious.

SMUG: This is delightful, this is so delightful because I’m lurking on Scary Krystal’s patreon page looking for new comments and taking on little, like I get a little spark of dopamine every time someone likes her stuff. I’m not taking any ownership of it. But it’s definitely like now we’re in this ship together and we’re both working on it from different ends and it’s a wonderful Eiffel Tower.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, absolutely, I completely agree. I don’t know if Eiffel Tower is slang for something, but I completely agree.

SMUG: Oh, it is slang. So, if you have someone between you and you’re using both ends and you do a hand slap, a high five with the other person, you make an Eiffel Tower.

ALL: [laughs]

BOO: Oh, what a visual.

DARKWICCAN: Right so, Boo.

[sound of a slap comes from somewhere]

DELAYNE: Did someone just high five themselves?

SMUG: I slapped my knee.

BOO: I learned something today, it’s a good day.

DARKWICCAN: So rappelling from that Eiffel Tower over to you Boo, you’ve been at this game for a very long time so I’m curious, when did you discover your skill at writing explicit fiction?

BOO: Well, I’m not sure, I think I may have to beg off of this question, I don’t think I’m skilled at writing explicit fics so much as I’m kind of an all around good writer, at least I try to be. And my first super explicit fic in this fandom was I think back in July of 2017 so that’s when I’m going to say I found out I was good at it. I had written in the past, and I think we touched on this once upon a time, but seriously that was hetero fic and not very good. So I just sort of found that I enjoyed writing what I enjoyed reading and I have always been a fan of going right to the explicit fics, because any time I started reading in a new fandom, because if I’m reading queer lady fics I want to read about them fucking. And let's be honest, there’s some people that this is the main purpose of fanfic, we’re seeing the things we aren’t seeing in other media outlets, and for me that was explicit so because I liked reading it I thought i’d give a hand writing it and turned out I was kind of okay at it.

DARKWICCAN: Hee hee, sorry.

BOO: All innuendo today, please.

DARKWICCAN: So Boo, I think it’s safe to say, you say that you’re an all-rounder, I completely agree that you are an all-rounder but you have a definite affinity for writing sexy scenes between lady- type characters. I mean you’re really good at it.

BOO: Well thank you, it’s just a thing I’m interested in, so I think that’s coming through.

DARKWICCAN: Fair, fair. So you write what you know.

BOO: Write what you know.

DARKWICCAN: And everybody, Boo is single. DELAYNE: [laughs] Gonna put that out there.

DARKWICCAN: Putting that out in the universe for you.

BOO: Boo is single, Boo is ace. Thank you.

DARKWICCAN: [laughs]

DELAYNE: We’ll find you a cuddle buddy, it’s fine.

BOO: All good.

DARKWICCAN: But Smug, same to you, when did you discover that you have a uniquely excellent skill set for writing explicit fiction.

SMUG: Well first, thank you for the compliment. For the longest time I didn’t think I was much of a writer, I started reading smut when I was, I don’t know, fourteen or fifteen. It was Gundam Wing anime smut, it was male/male slash fiction. And I’ve always read a ton of erotica but I never really thought I was any good at writing it but I got into kind of a kinky lifestyle when I was in graduate school doing my PhD. During that time I actually reconnected with an old friend from high school and we started having a long distance relationship and I would write her such stories over Facebook messenger which means it’s all owned by Facebook now, god...

DELAYNE: [laughs]

SMUG: But I would write her such, you know at the time very poorly written, in the moment, stories about, oh she’s sitting in a cafe and I just waltz in and drag her off to the bathroom and pull her pants down and go down on her in this dirty cafe bathroom so everyone can hear her screaming, kind of things. And I would save them and I would edit them and put them up on my fetLife account. And they’d get a few likes and I went on with my life. And then I found this fandom, and I credit my friend Grace for really telling me again and again, “you need to watch this show, you need to watch this show, dammit you need to watch this show.” And over the course of that experience I finally watched the show and I’d also read a lot of stuff that I didn’t really like, stuff I didn’t identify with and specifically some kinky stuff that I really really thought would full of some profound errors in consent, and I was like, “you know what, I know this shit, I know this backwards and forwards,” because in order to do this you need to know what someone has agreed to, you need to have had this conversation and you need to have this trust, and you need to have this respect. And I can write that. So I just tried it, and I never stopped.

ALL: [laughs]

SMUG: I just tried it one day and I got such good feedback and I have to credit all the readers who gave me props back then, this is like fall of 2017, I need to credit all the readers who gave me props, all the writers who gave me props, Boo who reached out and was like, “oh my goodness, bread pudding, that was in my most recent fic, let’s be friends.”

BOO: There was a joke about bread pudding in there, we both accidentally managed to use that as a plot point.

DARKWICCAN: Nice.

BOO: Food smut in common.

DELAYNE: That’s actually what I picked in the intro of this. you both had your sunday brunch, I did only mention Boo but I loved that both of you had a sunday brunch fic.

SMUG: And so I just found that I have a knack for it, just like I have a knack, I guess, for kink and sex in general. I’m not really boasting because the amount of hard work it takes to become good at these things, I cannot overstate how much you need to actually care to really get good at these things, but I feel like that’s really how I discovered that I had a knack for it. And it’s been such a source of joy, because everyone does something sexual, at least once in their lives, and if you can tap into that in somebody else who has completely different experiences from you, completely different life experience, and they’re like, “yeah, that was hot,” that’s awesome. So that’s how I kind of figured it out.

DELAYNE: Well said.

SMUG: I’m also an exhibitionist, so it kind of comes with the territory.

BOO: Definitely helps.

SMUG: In a consensual way, consensual but yes.

DELAYNE: Well, Smug, I’m kind of curious, sounds like you’ve had many strokes of inspiration, so which one has been your favourite?

SMUG: It’s interesting because when I write something that just pops into my head a lot of times I’m working through something that happened in my life. Like I wrote this fic where Nicole gets Waverly off in her truck on a roadtrip to a destination while she’s driving. And while watching other people has been very inspirational for me, and while my kinky life in general has been very inspiring, sometimes it’s the simpler more relationship constancy of sex that has inspired me, because that fic where it was a twitter fic I was writing just off the cuff because I experienced that in a relationship in college where I did that. And I think the inspiration from my history that let me process a piece of a relationship that’s no longer present, it failed utterly in some ways, and yet there were these little pieces, these little gems of joy and happiness and satisfaction and sexiness in amongst a lot of other stuff. I think those are my favourites, I think when I pick up on something that really spoke to me in a point at which I was deeply and desperately in love are some of my favourite strokes of inspiration.

DELAYNE: Aw, that’s so sweet. That’s the softest thing that you will probably say on this episode right?

SMUG: I mean, it’s like light and shadow right? If you have soft you need hard. You know, they work together.

DELAYNE: Gotcha. What about you Boo?

BOO: Well, first off I’d like to commend you for saying “stroke of inspiration” on this show, you know, nicely done. I guess I sort of have to agree with what Smug is saying. Sometimes you draw a lot of your inspiration or a lot of your structure of how are you going to write about this intense experience with these characters that we love. It’s not necessarily a hundred percent from experience but you’ve got to draw on that at least some. The thing that I think about when I’m sitting down and trying to construct at least a scene or what do I want the story to be about,

what setting do i want these characters in, I confess to actually trying to think through before I put a word down on the page what position are they going to be in, how are they going to have sex, what is the act going to be? Because I just don’t want to have boring sex obviously, and I want to write about something I haven’t done so I’ll be sitting there at the keyboard thinking, “oh, have I had them do sixty nine yet?” Or whatever. Whatever pops into my head it usually starts with how are they going to fuck? What are they going to do? And from there that’s how I build the one-shots. I don’t know, I guess the stroke of inspiration is thinking, “okay, how am I going to have them get it on?”

SMUG: Yeah. I like that.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Nice.

BOO: I mean really, I don’t want to see the same scene over and over again.

DARKWICCAN: What mistake do you each see other authors making when trying to write smut, Boo I’ll swing to you first.

BOO: I wouldn’t call it a mistake so much, because I want to applaud any writers writing anything but I really want to applaud people who are trying to write smut fic, especially for the first time because it can be a little, what’s the word I’m looking for, it’s a little bit terrifying. You’re putting yourself out there in that way, a lot of people approach it with a lot of trepidation. So I’m just going to say go for it, nothing is a mistake. Really do try to avoid, there’s a lot of tropes, there’s a lot of tropes in a lot of fanfic but the explicit trope is god, don’t have the “tongues battle for dominance.” Just try not to do those creaky turns of phrase you know.

DARKWICCAN: I always just picture the tongues having little boxing gloves on.

BOO: I picture swords and helmets.

ALL: [laughs]

DELAYNE: Gladiators, yeah.

BOO: Gladiator tongues. Just don’t fall into the same turn of phrase that everybody has used a million times, we all make those mistakes and try to learn from them and move forward. But bring your creativity into it, if you’re writing a smut-fic don’t be afraid to express anything other than what the body parts are doing because we kind of know what the body parts are doing, tell me something else, tell me something more, tell me something interesting.

DARKWICCAN: [singing] Tell me something good.

DELAYNE: [laughs extremely loudly]

BOO: Oh, I’m so glad to talk to you again Delayne.

DARKWICCAN: Delayne is amazing for my ego [inaudible mainly due to Delayne laughing]. If I ever do stand up I’m just going to make sure she's the first name on the guest list every night.

DELAYNE: Oh I would so be there. [Redirecting back to the guests] You’ve already given a lot of good advice I think for new and old writers but do you have any more advice for the newbies, especially new to writing smut.

SMUG: Oh yeah, so I think that something that has been really valuable to me is. okay frankly, let me be completely honest, not that I haven’t been but hey, whatever. The thing about writing smut is that it’s very exciting, it revs you up. In a way that writing plot actually does as well but I’m so anxious to post smut whereas plot I want to kind of wrap it in layers and layers and layers of thought before I put it out there into the world. But I think that smut of all things actually benefits the most from that kind of cocoon treatment. Because when I write it I tend to write through and I hit the high points, oh bam [sound of a slap] that happens, this happens, this happens, oh that’s hot. I write it out and then if I really cherish it and I really give myself, I go back through again and again and I add layers, I add layers of emotion, I add layers of attention to detail and I add layers of thought that might make it less immediately sexy but that increases the depth of emotion that people start to really feed back to me later that I’ve gone deeper than they were expecting and I’ve pulled up things that are more relevant to the human condition than just “hey I have a body, you have a body, let’s fuck.” I think that attention to detail in all of its forms is beautiful and there are ways to integrate details of emotion and connection and love and respect and consent in a way that don’t detract from, but actually increase the sexiness. And so for new writers I would say sleep on it and go back through and see if there’s pieces there that want more emotion, that are begging for a bit more detail, that are really crevices that you can fill... [short chuckle]

BOO: You had to go there.

SMUG: Yes, a little more richness, a little more detail. Go into senses, go into thoughts, go into feelings, and play with them in the context of your own mind. Because again, again and again and again this is what I tell people, and I tell myself of course because I have doubts as anybody does: the only person who can be in your mind is you. You’re the only one who can put up this particular smut-fic or this particular fic. You’re the only person who knows what this looks like. You can portray it however you want but you’re the only person who has the fly on the wall line of view. So lean into that, relish it, and dig deep and take that little bit of extra time, or a lot of extra time depending on your process, and try to fill it out in a way that makes sense to you. And I think that will benefit anybody who is going to be writing some smut.

DARKWICCAN: So here’s something that I’m curious about. And actually Smug I’m going to come to you with this question first. How challenging would it be for you to write quote unquote “clean” smut-fic, meaning free of vulgar language, free of anatomical reference, free of slang terms that could be considered. For example I once wrote a fic for Willa and Tara where I challenged myself to never refer to a body part using the actual term for the body part. I always used some sort of euphemism and I never used the same euphemism twice. So I guess the question would be, I know you love certain c-words that we’ve talked about before we started recording.

SMUG: You mean the word cunt?

DARKWICCAN: Yes, listeners just so you know, we will be using this language.

SMUG: Yes, please, let’s use the word cunt.

BOO: It’s a little late for a disclaimer don’t you think?

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Well, here’s the thing. Even though we are completely okay with it, the language is very rarely used. So even though we say “yeah you can say fuck all day long” there’s some folks for whom the c-word is across that line. “Oh yeah, you can say fuck but don’t say cunt, because cunt is, like, it’s too far.”

BOO: Yeah. #goals though.

SMUG: See, like the word dyke I would like to reclaim words that are used to refer to generally female things as a positive thing. And I also find the dopamine rush from vulgarity is very appealing and very fun and very useful in day to day life. So to address your question, I think that some of the more hilarious, again this is no reference to your work because I haven’t read your Willow and Tara work, some of the most hilarious stuff I’ve read, and by stuff I mean smut-fics of course, has been trying very, very, very hard not to refer to anatomy. And not to talk about the humanity almost of sex. Because let me own this upfront, sex is gross. When you look at it from a non-turned on perspective, when you think about there are fluids being technically excreted, there are mouths going where mouths have never gone in a platonic way before, there are lots of things that when you think about them you’re like, “wow, that’s really bizarre.”

DELAYNE: [laughs]

SMUG: If you take a step back and you explain all of this stuff using “so and so’s throbbing member” or “her moist cave” or.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: The language of straight lady romance novels.

SMUG: Yes, by freeing your writing of actual reference to actual body parts you end up existing in the land of. you know the secretary or the administrator in _Ten Things I Hate About You_?

DELAYNE: YES.

SMUG: Who is writing a romance novel on her laptop while she’s supposed to be working, you have this “throbbing member” and you have this urge not to repeat the same word twice in a paragraph, or twice in a fic, or twice in a book. And I think that it would be incredibly challenging for me to do this. To be fair I do use euphemisms occasionally but I find there’s a certain dopamine rush to using the actual terminology. I like to use a lot of feeling, a lot of emotion, in my writing. I like to embrace what the characters are going through. However I feel like I really like the hot bits as well and I think that using the slang, using the terminology actually adds some sexiness and a little bit of a dopamine rush to it. And I’m saying that as the writer of course, I’m not the reader. I am reading my own stuff. After I post it I’ll go and read through it every time I get a comment actually, just to remind myself of what I wrote. But I like, if you think about it like the emotional base is the crust of the pizza, and the fact that they’re having sex is the cheese, I like the hot bits, I like the cunts, and the fucks, and sliding your fingers inside someone’s cunt. I think there’s a real value to having the hot bits on the pizza as well, the pepperoni and the sausage. I think that there’s a real value to having that, so I think that writing a clean smut-fic incredibly challenging. And I admire those who can make that as hot as someone who dwells and revels and rolls in the vulgar bits because frankly I can’t do that. I don’t think that would be possible for me.

DARKWICCAN: Here’s the thing, the story that I wrote actually became one of my most popular stories, this is the Willow and Tara fic. And it became popular but not on the website where I primarily posted because it was banned from that site.

DELAYNE: Oh, I remember which one you’re talking about.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, it was banned from that particular site, for content. [laughs]

SMUG: That’s incredible, what did you do?

DARKWICCAN: I’ll send you a link. But I will say this much, this fic that I wrote, I take great great pride in because it’s a fic that fellow author of ours read back in the day, over a decade ago, and for the first time saw themselves represented in a fictional world, and it really helped them. And that’s what I get from a lot of people who have read this particular story, it really helped them.

DELAYNE: Ah, I can see that.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, and so I take great great pride in this story. I will send you a link to it, and if I get enough people tweeting at me who are interested I will post a link on the twitter feed as well.

BOO: And just to confirm, this story you are talking about, was this on the clean side or was this using the explicit or vulgar language?

DARKWICCAN: This was the clean fic, I purposefully did not use the actual term for the body part in question at all in any point in the entire story. You know what it is. There’s no question about what it is. But I never used any typical language to describe it.

BOO: It is a challenge. Something I’ve done, actually the first thing I wrote for Wayhaught, the _Never Stop_ story, is what I would consider my cleanest smut-fic in that I think the furthest I go as far as the language goes is talking about body parts, a nipple gets mentioned, but it’s very clear exactly what they’re doing. It’s challenging though, I think that sort of manipulation of language, being able to talk about sex without talking about parts, is something that you can’t sustain for a very long time. And it’s also, I know that Smug as a lot of work in her version of the ABO universe, and so when you get these queer lady fics, it’s one thing to write about female parts, there are certain terms I don’t like to use...

DELAYNE: Vulva.

BOO: Yeah, don’t say vulva. But you know, so we’re always talking something about her core. I also like cunt, the c-word, but it’s not one that I use very frequently. But once you get into girl-penis, magic penis, that sort of thing, you’ve got to use the words. Or talking about strap-on sex, I don’t use the word penis.

SMUG: I personally like cock.

BOO: Cock, cock is the best word. I’m not a big fan of dildo but I’ll accept it. Or if you get into magic penis of some sort yeah, you’ve got to talk about her cock you know.

DARKWICCAN: Do you though? Do you? I don’t think so. I genuinely don’t think you do.

BOO: I think it would be extremely challenging not to, but you know, everybody's up for the challenge too.

DARKWICCAN: It’s funny because I am more comfortable with the word penis than I am with the word cock. For me, when I read the word cock, and I apologise to Smug because you use the word a lot, it actually knocks me out of the story for a second, and I have to re-centre and go back. Wait, that sounded wrong.

SMUG: It’s really interesting how everyone has their thing that they find appealing or not appealing. I particularly don’t find penises very appealing, whereas I have a bag of dicks, or a bag of cocks, and it’s a bag of silicon dildos. It weighs like twenty pounds. So for me, I’ve accustomed myself to the use of these terms.

DARKWICCAN: “Choose your weapon” I’m sorry, I’m just picturing this giant bag of dicks.

SMUG: Oh my god, okay that’s going to go through my head next time I have sex.

DARKWICCAN: [laughs] You’re welcome. Okay so we’ve gotta kind of move right along because we’re..

BOO: We’re building to the big finish huh?

DARKWICCAN: Exactly. I’m either going to have a really long episode or we’ll take it to a mohel and have the tip cut off.

SMUG: I’m sure people will hate it if you include everything we say.

DARKWICCAN: So Delayne, do you have any more questions for our illustrious authors?

DELAYNE: Do you want me to? We can move on.

DARKWICCAN: Are you sure?

DELAYNE: Actually no, I’m definitely curious about this.

DARKWICCAN: I was going to say, I know you want to ask this question, come on.

DELAYNE: Because it sounds like Smug has hinted to some things so we’ll ask Boo first. Boo is there.

Boo: Uh oh.

DELAYNE: Is there any type of smut or kink that you just don’t think that you could pull off.

BOO: This is going to sound like ginormous ego but no, there is not. I want to approach my smut writing and my kink writing with fearlessness and it’s to me I just love the thought of the challenge. I’ll give you an example. In my own personal experience I have done nothing but dabble in the most shallow way in shibari so I don’t know that much about it, which is rope play. But Nicole canonically, you know rope climber, I have the head canon of her being really really into playing with ropes. Okay so now I get to dive into some really tasty and some really shady parts of the internet looking up this sort of stuff and learning all I can about it. And that is what would let me write with the fearlessness that I need in order to go there. And I do have one kind of expansive chapter in one of my explicit multi chapter stories about Nicole teaching Waverly, you know “now it’s time to try the ropes darlin’.” And that was fun research I have to say. So yeah, I can do anything, it’s the question of what I want to do. It’s a great big world.

DELAYNE: So I guess is there anything you don’t even want to look up?

BOO: Well, you know, straight sex is not a thing that appeals to me in any way shape or form. So that’s the thing I wouldn’t do, but y’all knew that already.

DELAYNE: Fair.

BOO: Fair.

DARKWICCAN: Well, this has been a fantastic conversation, thank you Boo and Smug so much for joining us today. So we did of course send you this question in advance in case you want to collaborate on the answer but if you have individual answers that works great also, I will take it either way, that’s what she said, please provide a smutty prompt for our authors listening.

SMUG: We did not collaborate so we have seperate ones I’m sure.

DARKWICCAN: Okay, Smug you spoke first so you go first.

SMUG: Okay I get that a lot. So I think one of my favourite things in the whole world is, I have a whole bag of tools upstairs, I have all these things that I have purchased, however some of my favourite things that i have ever used haven’t been purchased for a lascivious purpose at all. So I would say if any authors are listening and they want to indulge themselves in something a little bit kinky, I would say find yourself a “pervertable”. Something that’s in your house, generally honestly it’s in the kitchen, most of it’s in the kitchen, I’ll give you a clue, it’s in the kitchen.

Something that you might not think of as kinky until you view it in a certain light. It could be any number of things. Try to make sure that you’re not inserting something where you shouldn’t put it because it’s going to be damaging, but try to find something in your home, or in your apartment or wherever you are, that you can turn into a pervertable. And challenge yourself to find a way where your characters that you like to write could use that in a way that brings them closer together in so many ways.

BOO: I like that. Pervertable, but safety first. The question about providing a smutty prompt, I really drew a blank on this because for me smut is the seed of the idea usually comes from something totally random, out of the blue.

DELAYNE: I must say you’re pretty good with prompts, random tweets.

BOO: You know when we had our EFA live, when we were reading the works live the other day I almost read that one that got prompted by your conversation Delayne, the I’m in Starbucks one, which would have been fun but would have gone over time. Anyway back to this, as a smutty prompt, this one can be taken as smutty and it can be taken as fluffy, it’s at the author’s discretion, just give me something with the phrase, “how did that glitter get there?”

ALL: [laughs]

SMUG: Oh man, that’s amazing. Especially considering that Mardi Gras just ended here, there’s so many ways that glitter could have ended up there.

BOO: _Laissez les bon temps rouler!_ (translation: Let the good times roll!)

SMUG: That’s amazing, I love that idea Boo.

BOO: Okay well hopefully something will. someone will rise to the occasion.

SMUG: You said “something will. what?” Something will. come of it?

DARKWICCAN: Badum dum. And on that note, thank you so much for joining us. I am hopeful that our listening authors will take you up on your prompt ideas, they sounded like a ton of fun and yeah everyone be careful with those kitchen appliances and implements.

BOO: Careful Is a relative thing.

DARKWICCAN: Consent is sexy and everybody don’t forget to read more fic.

SMUG: Thank you so much.

MUSIC: Don't Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Maddigan

DARKWICCAN: And that's all for this episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Thanks for joining us. Our gratitude to Boo and Smug for sharing their expertise with us today.

Thanks also to our announcer Byron Tidwell for our intro Background music for the episode was:

A Proper Story by Darren Korb

The Music Box Souvenir Shop by Sideshow Sound Theatre

The Stripper by David Rose

and the outro music is Don't Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Madigan

If you have questions or comments for the podcast you can find us on Twitter at E-F-A underscore Podcast and on Facebook at E-F-A Podcast.

And you can find all of our episodes, old and new, at our website E-F-A Podcast dot com. And if you're listening on iTunes, please take a moment to rate and review our show.

Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you'll join us again next time for another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Until then, READ MORE FIC!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Episodes post Mondays at 8am PST
> 
> Visit our Website http://efapodcast.com/ for all episodes old and new!
> 
> Follow us on Twitter: @efa_podcast
> 
> And on Facebook: facebook.com/EFAPodcast


	4. Uptown Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This week DW and Delayne chat about the 'fish-out-of-water' story, "Beautiful People" by Wayhaughterthanthat, and then interview the author herself!

[Click HERE to Listen!](http://efapodcast.com/uptown-girl)

Read the Fic!

####  [Beautiful People](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20692565) by [Wayhaughtterthanthat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wayhaughtterthanthat/pseuds/Wayhaughtterthanthat)

Episode artwork by Chantal Zeegers

Emily's Desert Island fic selection is: [let our hearts be the only sound](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15389487) by [comelayinmybed &](https://archiveofourown.org/users/comelayinmybed/pseuds/comelayinmybed) [LuckyWantsToKnow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyWantsToKnow/pseuds/LuckyWantsToKnow)

Transcript by khevzs

EFA EP404 SEG1

[ph] – Indicates preceding word has been spelled phonetically

[sic] – Indicates preceding word has been transcribed verbatim

MUSIC : Write My Story by Olly Anna

ANNOUNCER GUY : You've tuned in to the _Earp Fiction Addiction_ , a fan podcast all about _Wynonna Earp_ fanfiction. Join our intrepid host DarkWiccan and Delayne as they dive deep into the sometimes sweet, sometimes spicy, and always varied world of fanfiction for the _Wynonna Earp_ fandom.

MUSIC: A Proper Story by Darren Korb

DARKWICCAN : Thanks, Announcer Guy and welcome everybody to another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction, the podcast dedicated entirely to Wynonna Earp fanfiction. I am your host, Darkwiccan, and with me is my lovely co-host…

DELAYNE : Hi! It’s Delayne!

DARKWICCAN : And we are super jazzed to be coming to you this week—yet another week spent in quarantine. I don’t know, Delayne, we might actually spend the entire 30 weeks that we’re recording in quarantine.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Uhm, we’ll deal with that when it comes to it.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah.

DELAYNE : I don’t wanna think about that right now [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : We’ll take it two weeks at a time [laughs]. 

DELAYNE : Wise.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, right? Although our illustrious governor of Washington state has—I’m sure wisely, I think this is true for all of the coastal states on the west, in the west, so far, decided to throw down the edict that we will remain homebound through May the 4th. So Star Wars day, right now is the day that we can all…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Use the force to haul our quarantine-slackened bodies out of our houses [laughs]

DELAYNE : And celebrate by dancing in the street. Oh wait! People are already doing that [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, just at a great distance from each other. 

DELAYNE : Yes [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Uhm, [laughs] So we’ll see. We’ll see if we’ll get out of here on May 4th. It’s still only the—It’s April 4th right now as we’re recording this, so, you know, we’ll see what happens. Uh…

DELAYNE : [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : We might get within two weeks of May 4th and our governor comes back and goes, “Hey, remember how I said May 4th was the day? Well, I was wrong about that.”

DELAYNE : [Laughs] 

DARKWICCAN : Ah, what a way, [ph] wah.

BOTH : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : Right? Like…

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, that’s—

DELAYNE : Brain cannot comprehend. So, how about we talk about things that we can comprehend? And that is fanfiction.

DARKWICCAN : That’s very wise. Let’s discuss fanfiction, our happy place that we are spending much more time in lately. I tell you what, there has been such a—as I call it, a delightful abundance of new fic posting to AO3. I am behind in my reading. To the point where it’s affecting my ability to give recommendations because as we know, it’s the rule that EFA will not recommend something that we haven’t read all the way through. So…

BOTH : [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : I’m just watching these titles just fly past me and I’m just trying to kinda keep a—like, made a note of like the last title that I read and now that’s on like—all the way though—and that’s on like page three at this point. Oh my God.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Folks, I appreciate your patience. I am doing my best here [laughs]. I am one of the—I recognize that I’m incredibly lucky that I’m able to work from home right now, and so my income has not been affected. That’s—I’m hugely, hugely lucky in that fact. But, because I’m still working, I am not able to read at the same time as I am working. I try to, but it’s weirdly different. Like when I’m—at my office at work, it’s actually easier for me to read at work for some reason. I don’t know why? Than it is for me to read at home. Shrug, I’m doing my best.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Plus, you know, with the taking care of the wee baby.

DARKWICCAN : Taking care of the wee baby, this is true. I mean, again, I’m lucky and that I’m grateful to have this time with my kid. My kid is young enough that it’s a joy to be able to spend time with him. I don’t have a [ph] three-nager.

BOTH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Raging about the house. I don’t have a frustrated adolescent. I don’t have a tween-ager, or a teen. I have a [ph] bebe. And babies are generally adorable, and portable and compact, so that, you know [chuckles] yep.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Okay, and how about you Delayne? I know that you are also an essential worker, we’ve talked about in the previous episode. How is that going for ‘ya?

DELAYBE : Uh, well, I sent you a photo of the—I cannot, of course.

DARKWICCAN : Share, right?

DELAYNE : Share [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : It’s too bad, ‘coz your ears, really.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Are adorable.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : The way your mask, and your little hat push your ears down and out, that was cute.

DELAYNE : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : Yes.

DELAYNE : Well, actually, they’re kinda normally, are down and out. Uhm [laughs] But yes, uh, it’s you know, I still have to go into work and definitely take in as many precautions as possible, but people…people need their food still, so, you gotta get the food to ‘em.

DARKWICCAN : This is true, people do need their food. Especially now.

DELAYNE : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : As people are eating far more than they normally would. 

BOTH : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : I can attest to that. I cannot stop snacking [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, man, what is up with that?

DELAYNE : [Laughs] And with no going to the gym.

DARKWICCAN : See, I just use my baby as a free weight, you know. But like.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] I don’t think my dog would appreciate that but she does not like being picked up.

DARKWICCAN : Probably not. I don’t think your back would appreciate you in that.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Considering she’s about 40 pounds or the 30-pound frame, yeah [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. Okay, so fanfiction, as you so wisely started to point us in the direction of.

DELAYNE : And we totally veered.

DARKWICCAN : Totally veered, that’s my fault. Totally—I take total blame for that. Okay, so fanfiction. Alright. So this week, we are talking about a single fic. But it’s a big’un and—it’s a big’un and folks, if you haven’t been reading it already, this will be great way to spend your time, if you’re still in quarantine by the time this airs. 

DELAYNE : Nice [ph] looong fic. It’s not done yet. 

DARKWICCAN : Nice long fic. Currently—it’s not done. Currently, 28 out of 30 anticipated chapters. Currently 164,711 words in those 28 out of 30 chapters. So, we’re probably gonna hit 180, 190, maybe crack 200, we’ll see just based on the average length per chapter. We’ll see where they hit. We’ll see. But, yeah, this is an interesting one, in fact I’ll go ahead and kinda tease next week’s episode. I picked this week’s fic and next week’s fic purposefully because they deal with similar issues, but of course in a very different way. In this one we’ve got Nicole the trouble-maker because she’s trying to get attention. Next week’s fic we’ve got—this is the only part I’ll say about it because we need to dedicate this week to this week’s fic—but next week’s fic we’ve got Nicole the trouble maker by accident and necessity. So, it’s interesting to see how—

DELAYNE : Compare, contrast.

DARKWICCAN : Yes, exactly. Uhm, so, it’s nice to see the evolution of both of these Nicoles across both stories. But let’s talk about this one. This is called “Beautiful People” and it’s by Wayhaughtertthanthat, and the premise of the story is that Nicole is a troublemaker. She has been kicked out of her current foster home, she’s in foster care. She’s on probation and her probation officer, as a last ditch effort to help keep her out of trouble, and thus keep her out of the adult system—

DELAYNE : Keep her out of juvie. Well, juvie and—seems like she’s… ol—

DARKWICCAN : She’s 17 at the start of the story.

DELAYNE : Right, so she’s—Uh.

DARKWICCAN : Right on that edge.

DELAYNE : But it’s this person that kept her from juvie as well, pretty sure about that.

DARKWICCAN : Uh, no I think you’re right, that he has managed to keep her out of juvenile detention, by keeping her in probation [laughs]

DELAYNE : Right [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : It’s like, every time she gets close to making it out of probation, she screws up and ends up back in probation. But, so, her probation officer is a last ditch effort to keep her out of juvie and ultimately out of trouble as an adult, really.

DELAYNE : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : The track she’s on is not a good one. He makes a few calls and gets her into foster care with his good buddy, Sheriff Randy Nedley, in a little town called Purgatory, which means that Nicole is gonna be leaving her place in the city and going to the country. Uh, who is Nicole’s probation officer, you may be wondering?

DELAYNE : [Laughs] I love it.

DARKWICCAN : Why, it’s Xavier Dolls, of course.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : And, uh, and the thing is he’s actually got this really kind of friendly—well, they’re friends. It’s almost like she’s been in his care, essentially, under his watch for so long that they can’t help but have to establish a sort of an awkward friendship.

BOTH : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : I do love their dynamic in fics for sure, and this one is a good one because, you know, Dolls being the probation officer. But he still—you know, he’s protective of his people and he looks out for her and it’s very sweet.

DARKWICCAN : Yes. It is. So, we arrive in Purgatory with Nicole and Xavier, and it is not the Purgatory of the show. This is definitely an AU Purgatory. This is a rich people Purgatory.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] With big, fancy houses, and their houses are, you know, gated and you have to drive or walk a mile to get to the [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yes, everyone in Purgatory is really rich, and is it ever explained why? I don’t recall.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] I’m picturing a place. My wife grew up in the—a couple different places, one of them was a fairly small town that was fairly wealthy because everyone was farmers and I guess they were really good at farming. They didn’t have, there’s certainly no fancy houses like the ones described here. But trying too—I’m picturing, you know, a farm-oriented but supportive community, but everyone has a lot of money. I don’t know, it’s—

DARKWICCAN : Exactly, I don’t typically think, especially these days, of farmers being particularly well-off. I mean, with just the things that I’ve heard on the nightly news, you know.

DELAYNE : Wait! This was back in the 90’s when…when—

DARKWICCAN : Oh, yes. Yes.

DELAYNE : And the farmers supported—they all supported just the High School, very much.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah.

DELAYNE : Supported teams. Supported the kids.

DARKWICCAN : Maybe everyone in this Purgatory has stock in commodities.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : You know? Yeah, for those who don’t know, commodities are like farm-based products like pork bellies and soy beans and stuff like that. And you can make a lot of money on the commodities market if you know what you’re doing. And, if Purgatory is a farm-supportive but not necessarily farming community…

DELAYNE : Right.

DARKWICCAN : It’s possible that maybe they’re just, you know, old money, could be in play here, as well as commodities. [Stutters] There’s no reason why the Sheriff should be living in this palatial state.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Unless it’s a dirty Sheriff which—

DARKWICCAN : Which we know Randy is not.

DELAYNE : Right [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : So there’s something—some sort of funnel of money coming into the families of Purgatory. It doesn’t matter, really. It’s just, you know—

DELAYNE : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Just know that this is a wealthy Purgatory and it’s nothing like Nicole has ever experienced.

DELAYNE : Right.

DARKWICCAN : She’s never been one of the beautiful rich people. Right, that’s the title of this story, the “Beautiful People,” right, so. She’s just a beautiful person, she’s never been a wealthy one, so she’s like [ph] “aaay, ‘kay.”

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Uhh, so, so yeah. So first of all, it knocks Nicole for six that she’s in this super wealthy tiny town.

DELAYNE : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Uh, secondly, you know, she’s living with THE Sheriff so she has to be on her best behavior, and of course she doesn’t know what she’s getting into there. What kind of a guy is this guy gonna be, and she suddenly has a foster sister in the form of Chrissy Nedley, and Chrissy—

DELAYNE : [ph] Ugh [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Ain’t too thrilled to have a foster sibling under the roof across the hall from her. She’s not particularly jazzed about it. 

DELAYNE : Yeah, she makes particular effort at the beginning to uhm—it reminds me a bit of Daria, when her sister’s like, “oh that’s my…nanny’s cous--” like, ridiculous—makes up ridiculous things to say that this person does not actually live me, I’m not related to them, but for some reason they’re always here [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] is that in relation to that blanch—the blonde charact—I can’t remember, I haven’t seen “Daria” in years.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Yes, Quinn tells everyone that Daria is—

DARKWICCAN : Oh, that’s right. That’s right 

DELAYNE: A cousin of a cousin, or something ridiculous.

DARKWICCAN : Yep.

DELAYNE : So, that’s what [laughs] And it made me a little worried about everyone’s favorite character Chrissy and how she was a little off-putting [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : But, you know what, though? That’s true to the show as well.

DELAYNE : Yep.

DARKWICCAN : Because when we first meet Chrissy she’s trending towards Stephanie Jones’ side, right?

DELAYNE : Right.

DARKWICCAN : So, at first we don’t really know what to make of her, and then we real—and then the more we get to know her through that episode, the more we’re like, ”okay, she’s—she’s just sort of like stuck in this I-have-to-be-friends-with-the-popular-girl-and-say-the-right-things situation.” So.

DELAYNE : Right. Good point.

DARKWICCAN : Yep. Even though I’m a fully grown adult who can make my own choices [gibberish] Anyway, old habits die hard. So, yeah. Well, so where is Waverly in all this? Well, we’ll get to Waverly in a second.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : First, let’s talk about Nicole. Nicole’s natural inclination, tends to lead her toward trouble, right?

DELAYNE : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : So, Randy basically orders Chrissy to take Nicole to the homecoming game, or some opening—not the homecoming game, but like…like the big—it was like a pre-season game…

DELAYNE : Right.

DARKWICCAN : That everybody goes to. I don’t know, I—

DELAYNE : Pre-season rival game.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah.

DELAYNE : So.

DARKWICCAN : I guess this is a thing. [stutters] Guys, I was in the theatre auditorium all high school. I have no idea what happened. I mean, I was also on the basketball team and the soccer team, but football, I don’t even know. So, football was over there somewhere.

BOTH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : You can’t see it—you can’t see this but I’m gesturing at a great distance. Uhm, so.

DELAYNE : And I was in marching band, so I—yes. There’s weird start up games or reasons to get past some of the rules…

DARKWICCAN : Ah.

DELAYNE : About when to start and when to practice, and yeah, you can have this sort of extra games if all parties agree and it’s one way to get practice in. It sounds like this is a standard rivalry that they—something they’ve always done.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, exactly, it’s like the big kick-off to the school year.

DELAYNE : Neighboring town. Yeah. Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. Yeah. So, basically Randy orders Chrissy to take Nicole to this thing so that she can start meeting people. And, Chrissy’s not thrilled, but she does. But of course, as soon as they get to the football field, Chrissy is [ph] zoom! She’s gone. She’s like, “peace out, mofo, I’m going to hang with like my friends and you’re not invited.” So.

DELAYNE : Yep.

DARKWICCAN : So, Nicole’s like, “alright.” So where does she naturally gravitate to? Under…

DELAYNE : Under! The bleachers!

DARKWICCAN : The bleachers.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Where, no surprise, there’s already a few people hanging out.

DARKWICCAN : Including, our favorite delinquent, Wynonna Earp.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Uh, there of course with booze.

DARKWICCAN : Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

DELAYNE : Uhm, I’m trying to remember if they had cigarettes. I [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : I think there were.

DELAYNE : I know—I know—I know cigarettes appear quite a bit.

DARKWICCAN : Yes.

DELAYNE : As someone who likes to take smoke breaks. And uh, but yeah definitely getting into some trouble under the bleachers.

DARKWICCAN : Uh-huh, uh-huh, and so I don’t—my first thought in reading in this like first section was, “oh, geez, right away, Nicole’s gonna get into trouble.” But, I don’t really think it’s too much of a spoiler because I don’t think it’s the point of the story? Whether or not Nicole’s gonna get into trouble. It’s Purgatory rich kid trouble. So it’s like, the extent of it is underage drinking [laughs] and [ph] woofing at the cheerleaders. Like, that is…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : It’s not like, “hey, you wanna do this bump of cocaine?” or something. Is that the right term? I don’t know.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] I don’t know what city kids get into trouble for.

DARKWICCAN : I don’t either. I move around too much. I was never in one place long enough. Plus. That wasn’t my scene anyway. Uh, but—

DELAYNE : Exactly.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. I think that’s like a Beverly Hills kid thing.

DELAYNE : Ah.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, so Purgatory is basically your classic I-stole-my-dad’s… you know, jack-daniels-bottle-from-the-liquor-cabinet, he’ll-never-notice-as-long-as-we-fill-it-back-up-with-iced-tea situation.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : But… so, so yes, that’s how we get the beginning of the WynHaught brotp there. And then, you know, eventually Nicole spies Waverly for the first time and they’re instantly like, “oh, who’s that girl?” But, you know, beyond that, she’s not –it’s like—you know, her plan was just to kinda keep her head down. And—

DELAYNE : Trying to get through this because once she turns 18, she can get the heck outta there.

DARKWICCAN : Uh-huh, uh-huh. So, she and Waverly end up in a class together, and end up getting assigned—the first day of class, they end up getting assigned as partners for the, like, big half-year project that they have to turn in before Christmas break or something. And, Waverly is of course gung-ho, “let’s get started! Let’s do this now!” And Nicole’s like, “woah, chill, little person. We have three months to do this. We don’t need to start cramming now.” And, of course that immediately pisses Waverly off. So [laughs]

DELAYNE : I love that she stomps towards the teacher to try and get a change in partner, and then stomps back, “ugh, your house or mine?”

BOTH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, so—so that is the—that’s the beginning of WayHaught relationship. [Laughs] it’s definitely sort of a mild-enemies-to-friends-to-of-course-eventually-lovers-because-this-is-WayHaught. But, yeah. So, so that’s basically the beginning of the story.

DELAYNE : This it—it’s so solidly in a high school AU, and whenever I read these I—it’s just makes me feel a little old [laughs]. All of the teenage drama [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, I don’t—it’s one of those things where I’m like, for me it’s weird because I’ll be like reading it going, “is that really how a teenager would react? Or is that how an adult would project a teenager to react?” For me, when I read--

DELAYNE : Right.

DARKWICCAN : High school fic. Is this like precocious, you know, hyper-intelligent-oddly-too-mature teen of “Dawson’s Creek” or is this…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : You know.

DELAYNE : Like, like on “Buffy” when Buffy or Cordelia would make a really smart adult joke and it’s like, “wait a minute.”

DARKWICCAN : Like… yes. Like, these teenagers are incredibly well-read and well-rounded.

BOTH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : [Stutters] I always try to think back to my own experience of being a teenager and I try really hard to be honest with myself and I mean let me tell ya, I was a relatively smart kid but like, the references—and the thing, I was really well-read, I was this theatre kid who was well-read in all of Shakespeare and most of Ibsen and, you know, I’d read, you know, the great myths before they were sa—I mean, I’d read Vonnegut. I was a well-read kid, I was precocious, you could say. But, not on the level of some of the—yeah, so. I couldn’t—yeah, make super fast pop culture, or even like literary references the way [laughs] a lot of teens in teen dramas do. And the thing is like, I can’t—honestly, I feel like the representation of teenagers in the story of “Beautiful People” is pretty honest with just a bit of a [ph] zhuzh of higher maturity.

DELAYNE: But that’s like dramatic TV type of [ph] zhuzh.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, exactly.

DELAYNE : So, it plays out well because it does seem like a teenage drama.

DARKWICCAN : Uh-huh, yeah, yeah. The thing about teenagers, and I count myself as a former teen in this category, is they think that they’re reasonable.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] that is true.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] they think that they’re reasonable. They think they’re thinking a long a logical line when, I’d say 7 out of 10 times, they really are not. So that’s why—that’s kinda I think what sets apart like…

BOTH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : They’re, you know—we’ve had a few stories that we’ve talked about in the past that were written by actual teenagers who are--

DELAYNE : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : Really, you know, decent, excellent writers, and they did a better job of capturing the reality of the teenage thought process ‘coz they were teenagers at the time of the writing [laughs]

DELAYNE : I don’t even wanna go back and look at what I wrote as a teenager [laughs] If I could even find it. Everything was dramatic. Everything was life or death [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : I don’t think I was that severe. I’ve always been a kind of a mellow person.

DELAYNE : I could see that.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, you can see that?

BOTH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : But, good? Uh, but, uh.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : See, I don’t wanna like say, “no, I’m a mellow person” and like have everybody roll their eyes like, “oh, no, you’re not.”

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : But I would say that the writing in “Beautiful People” is, like I said, it walks that line and with the occasional necessary dramatic, to be redundant, [ph] zhuzh in the, you know, like the maturity knowledge, you know, emotional maturity level.

DELAYNE : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, yeah.

DELAYNE : What I like about the story and any author who can do this is pretty much fitting every single damn character that they have in canon, all of the side ones, like for the most part, but everyone is in this, right?

DARKWICCAN : I believe everyone is. I mean, do Levi and Fish make an appearance?

DELAYNE : Oh. Maybe not.

DARKWICCAN : You know, they have two chapters left.

BOTH : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : But, uhm, I will say I was happy to see Robin right from the start. That made me happy.

DARKWICCAN : Uh-huh, uh-huh.

DELAYNE : I adored Chrissy fawning over him [laughs] because I suspected [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Oh, poor Chrissy. Yeah. 

DELAYNE : Where that was gonna go, and I was happy to say that is how it went.

BOTH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Ah, poor Chrissy.

DELAYNE : Yeah. Any author can just take everyone and manage to find a way to fit them in. Most of the stuff I write, I tend to keep it simple. It’s hard to get an ensemble.

DARKWICCAN : It is, it’s really difficult to get a well-rounded executed ensemble in writing a story like this.

DELAYNE : Yeah, and I think it works in the high school AU, because it’s a lot easier to, uh.

DARKWICCAN : Oh, yeah. 

DELAYNE : Yeah [laughs]. You have to have the setting to put everyone in and high school AU is perfect for that.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, completely agree. A lot harder in like a space AU.

BOTH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : ‘Coz ships are only so big, you know.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] that seems so random, I’m sorry.

DARKWICCAN : It was, sorry. My favorite thing about this story is the really masterful handling of the progression of time, because characterizations—the character growth, nothing feels rushed. Everything feels very organic, and it feels earned? Where a lot of times, I think authors struggle with this, where—especially the slow burn element—there’s a mild slow burn element here and there’s always, I think, that sort of desire as an author to just get it over with so you can get to the fluff and then the next stage after the fluff. You know, so I just think that wayhaughtertthanthat has done a fantastic job of pacing in this story, and not making it feel like overly drawn out but the same time not rushing things. And I don’t just mean that with the development of the WayHaught ship. I mean that with the development of the friendships between characters as well.

DELAYNE : Yes good point.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. Uh-huh, uh-uh. So, yeah, it’s just a really nicely written fic.

DELAYNE : And it’s not done yet. We still have—maybe by the time of this airing—I don’t know.

DARKWICCAN : I don’t know either. Possible. We’ll see.

DELAYNE : You’re better at [sic] guestimating that. Yeah, ‘coz it gets complex.

DARKWICCAN : It does. It absolutely does.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] and that’s all we’re gonna give ya.

DARKWICCAN : That’s all we’re gonna give ya. Yes, so let’s get on to our chat with the author, wayhaughtertthanthat, in the next segment here

[CONTENT CENSORED. PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT]

MUSIC: Uptown Girl by Billy Joel

DARKWICCAN : And welcome back everybody to the Earp Addiction, the podcast dedicated entirely to Wynonna Earp fanfiction. I remain your host, Darkwiccan, and with me is my delightful co-host…

DELAYNE : Hi! It’s Delayne!

DARKWICCAN : And joining us to chat about the spectacular fic “Beautiful People” is the author of said work, the amazing wayhaughterthanthat, who we’re calling Emily today. Emily, welcome to the show.

EMILY : Hey, thanks for having me.

DARKWICCAN : Oh, our pleasure, let me tell ya. This work has been a ton of fun to follow over the past half year that you’ve been working on it. This, uh, let’s see, I’d actually—normally I go in and do a little research on my authors, I did not do that in your case, so.

DELAYNE AND EMILY : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : You’ve got a few Wynonna Earp works, right? Like, 6 or 7, or something like that?

EMILY : Oh, yeah, think so. Probably about 6 or 7 now.

DARKWICCAN : Okay.

EMILY: I’ve been on a roll, I don’t know [chuckles]

DARKWICCAN : Nice. Well, you know what, with this—everybody’s on a roll right now with the quarantine. I’m overwhelmed in the best possible way [laughs]

EMILY : It’s been a ride, I’ll tell ya [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. Stayin’ healthy, stayin well where you are?

EMILY : Yeah, pretty good. I’m trying my hardest to work from home and stay—I’m a therapist so working from home with kids on a computer is not easy, but, you know, I’m doing my best.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, yeah, no kidding. Well thank you for [sic] therapizing because [laughs]

DELAYNE : It’s definitely needed in this time.

EMILY : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : People, uh, people need it. People need it these days so that’s noble work that you’re doing there. I hope you have somebody that you are able to chat to to kinda, you know, get the darkness off your chest.

EMILY : Yeah, my company’s been really good to work with.

DARKWICCAN : Good, good. Glad to hear it. So now you’ve only been writing fic for about a year, huh?

EMILY : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Or, at least in this vein.

EMILY : No, that’s, yeah. That’s pretty much it. I mean, when I was younger, I wrote a little bit of “One Tree Hill” fic, but it was mostly on notebooks, to be honest with you. I’ve never—I think I might have posted one but honestly it was like 15 years ago. And I barely, you know, remember what happened yesterday some days, so.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Get you there.

EMILY : Yeah [laughs]. It was a long, long time ago. But yeah, mostly—I started writing toward the end of 2018, we’re in 2020 right now, yeah. So, yeah, about a little over a year and I don’t know, just kinda took off [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : So, what prompted you to start writing?

EMILY : Well I went—well I—we can kinda go back to when I found Wynonna Earp, I guess. I have my wife to thank for that. She’s been watching it since the beginning really, and I kinda just existed in the room with her while it was on and I don’t—I do a lot of, yeah, I just exist for the most part. But, I just—I do a lot of like progress notes from home so I’m sitting on my computer most of the time, so whatever’s on TV I’m not really focused on. And after a while, it was kinda like, “oh, this is really interesting,” you know? So I went back, I actually saw season 2 before I saw season 1 so that’s interesting. But, I was like, “ok”, because it was on, you know, and it was when it came out on Netflix, so I went back and I re-watched season 1, and then I watched season 2 and then I was caught up live season 3. So, around that time, it was like the summer before that, we found Earp-a-palooza and we ended up—that was our first convention, the first Earp-a-palooza that they had, we went to. And then, I started reading fanfic maybe around then. I was like really, really into it, and I had never even really read fanfic before, not even “One Tree Hill” I don’t think, to be honest with you [laughs]

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

EMILY : Maybe a little bit, but again, 15 years ago. So yeah, I just started reading it and then I was like, “you know, maybe I can write something,” ‘coz I’ve always been into writing, and I wanted to write my own original stories for a long time now, and I have this one that’s kinda been festering for 10 years now and it’s changed a bunch of times, so I was like, “maybe if I start writing fanfiction, I can, you know, work on my own writing a little bit.” So I came up with my first fic and I was just like, “oh, yeah this—I’m gonna be one and done. I’m not gonna write anything else. I don’t have any other ideas,” and then all of a sudden I have another idea every other day now so.

ALL : [Laughs]

EMILY : It’s been like, you know, I was like, “this is it. I’m gonna write this fic and I’m gonna post it and then I’m gonna be done with it,” and then, here we are.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yep.

EMILY : This one’s like a hundred and sixty-something thousand words right now and I don’t know [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, it’s—we were talking about that actually in the previous segment, the gorgeous length of the story. But yeah, writing fanfic is kinda like eating potato chips.

ALL : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : You can’t just have one. You gotta [laughs]

DELAYNE : [Laughs] It always starts that way. It sounds like quite a few people are like, “yeah, I’m just gonna do this the one time,” and.

DARKWICCAN : Exactly. “I got this story idea that I just—it’s not leaving me alone, so I’m just gonna write it, get it out of my system and then I’ll be done.” Ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha. So you think it’s—

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

EMILY : You look at my google drive and I have probably like 15 different folders of stories that I haven’t even started yet, so—where I wrote in, you know, 10,000 words and then stop so I don’t know. But we’ll see. They’ll get somewhere I hope, eventually [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : That sound about right. That sounds about right, yeah. Yeah.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] My favorite is going back through and reading the ones I have made notes on to see if the inspiration will kick back up, you know, if I’ve lost it, and be like, “ooh!” you know, something will grab and I’ll write a little bit more and then, yeah [laughs] I haven’t posted very much, so, kudos to you [laughs]

EMILY : I actually have one in the middle of—while I was writing this fic, I wrote—well, I wrote the Christmas ones in the middle of this one too, but in the middle of me writing this, I wrote another one and I wrote, you know, probably five thousand words of four different chapters but not in order, so I don’t even know. I’m like, “I’m gonna go back to that one,” but honestly, I don’t know. That’s my goal after this fic was, but it’s supposed to be 40,000 words at least, like 10 per chapter—per 4 chapters, but I don’t—at this point, I’m like, “I don’t even know what I was thinking at the time,” so I’m hoping I took enough notes in between, but we’ll find out.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Well I look forward to reading that when you get to it.

ALL : [Laughs]

EMILY : Me too.

ALL : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : Well, if you check your notes on this “Beautiful People,” did you write down any indication on why you made Purgatory this rich and fancy place?

EMILY : It’s actually funny, ‘coz I looked through my notes a little bit before this, to see what they looked like from originally—from their original note—it was actually dated, I think, September 4th of last year, and I was like, “oh, I forgot I was gonna write that,” but the story kinda took off and did something totally different, so—not totally different, but you know, it’s just kinda evolved differently, but the whole idea of Purgatory being rich and fancy, I guess it’s just because it’s not at all that? So I was like, you know, I was like, “what if, you know, we took this town that’s nothing like that and kinda created its own.” ‘Coz I think like what I’ve been doing with fanfiction itself is like taking these characters what—I don’t really write anything that’s canon to the show. I mean like, the storylines are similar, the you know, the relationships are similar, but I like to take what was written, ‘coz I think the are—you know, the writers already did a great job with what they have, so I’ve kinda just borrowed that idea a little bit and then expanded onto like a while different world. So, the idea of “Beautiful People” itself, I mean, I don’t know if you guys know the Ed Sheeran song “Beautiful People” but that [laughs]. Somebody actually asked if “I think of that song every time I see this,” and I was like, “oh, well, you hit the nail on the head there.” ‘Coz I’m inspired a lot by music when I write, so the idea of that song is, you know, there’s this fancy group of people and just because you are involved, but that doesn’t mean that you’re one of those people, like that’s not exactly what you wanna be. So I kind of heard that song and its lyrics and I just thought maybe that that would be something that I could go with, and that’s where I came up with, like, “oh, let’s make Purgatory rich and fancy and see what happens” [laughs].

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Sounds a little like a challenge to let’s take the thing that we know and just make it a little different as well.

EMILY : Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it’s all—I like to kinda challenge myself when I write and uhm, especially like this, so I’m trying to picture what this could even gonna look like, so I’m googling like big fancy houses, and all these things and I’m like, ‘coz I don’t, you know, live in a big and fancy house, or grew up in a town like that at all, so I was just like trying to picture it myself, which it was a little bit of a challenge, but yeah, picturing like the town Sheriff in this giant house with [laughs] you know, like, more rooms that they even visit half of this story. It was like, I don’t know, it was interesting.

DARKWICCAN : Oh, it’s funny ‘coz I was actually—I’m actually not familiar with the Ed Sheeran song, and I was only thinking of the Marilyn Manson song, which I—

DELAYNE AND EMILY : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Fortunately doesn’t line up to this storytelling.

EMILY : You’re not the only one, actually [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Uh, yeah [laughs] I’m just like, “I guess the title’s nice?” Like I—

ALL : [Laughs]

EMILY : No, it’s yeah—it’s not quite like that.

ALL : [Laughs]

EMILY : That is not the song that I was inspired by

DARKWICCAN : Would you say that you might have been [laughs]. Now I must confess, I’ve never seen “One Tree Hill.”

EMILY : Ah, okay.

DARKWICCAN : So I might be coming at this from completely the wrong place, but there’s a part of me that assumes with a title like “One Tree Hill” it’s about a bunch of rich kids in high school, is that true?

EMILY : Hmm, I mean not really? No, they’re not all—

DARKWICCAN : Oh yeah.

EMILY : It’s like, they definitely have money, like some of them, but no not really. I’d say like, if you ever watched The O.C., back then at the same time, that’s more the rich kids in high school, and that’s actually kinda more of the feel that this story goes along with because…

DARKWICCAN : Okay.

EMILY : Somebody from a different world, moves to this fancy world, and, you know, everything is different

DELAYN E: I was—

DARKWICCAN : Fish-out-of-water story.

DELAYNE : I was actually, yeah. I was given an O.C. vibe, I just didn’t realize it, so thank you for that [laughs]

EMILY : Yeah, I wasn’t trying to go like quite like that story but that kind of idea where, you know, this person comes and…

DELAYNE : Definitely the outsider.

EMILY : Yeah, blows up everybody’s worlds, kinda, no—sometimes in good ways too, and, you know.

ALL : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Well, one thing that you’ve done which is something that I know that Delayne’s gonna dive into a bit more later on is that you’ve brought in a good chunk of the canon characters into this story that you’re telling and what I found interesting is the way that you brought Dolls into the story. I mean, aside from the law enforcement connection, what made you decide to have Dolls serve as Nicole’s probi?

EMILY : I think, personally, I mean I wish I could have seen—could see more of Dolls, I’m sure a lot of people feel that way in the show, but I think that the relationship with Nicole and Dolls, I think I just—I’m so interested in what could have happened there, like with their friendship and their working together, and their, you know, just the two of them together a lot. So I kinds of just got into that idea, and then I was like, “oh, how funny would it be if, you know, she’s this like punk kid and he’s trying to be serious, but they have like this kind of playful relationship back and forth too?” ‘Coz obviously he cares a lot about her, and I just thought that—I kinda got that from the show a little bit too with him trying to help her and stuff.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, totally. I mean I—don’t get me wrong, I like it. I like it. We were talking about in the previous segment.

DELAYNE : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : That I really, really enjoyed the relationship that Nicole and Dolls have, and that just because he’s been her probation officer for so long that they can’t have but helped develop a sort of awkward friendship dynamic to their relationship.

EMILY : Yeah, and I think it’s just kind of-- 

DARKWICCAN : But also kind of—

EMILY : I’m sorry. Go [chuckles]

DARKWICCAN : No, no.

EMILY : I think it’s a lot of like—her—the choice of picking that character—‘coz I, again, like I used so many characters that I kind of chose who was gonna be, you know, in high school, who wasn’t gonna be in high school, and that kinda thing. And I think a lot of my stories, I kinda swap pack and forth between the Wynonna-Dolls and the Dolls—or the, not Dolls, Doc [chuckles] Okay, that’d be interesting [laughs]

DELAYNE : [Laughs] some people do that, who knows.

DARKWICCAN : [ph] Baam!

EMILY : We can do that. We can do that, yeah [laughs]. I’m not against it, but—or the Doc-Wynonna relationship. So in this one I kinda went with that even though Doc just kind of exist, I don’t even think he’s spoken in this whole entire fic but—nothing against him, it’s just when you have that many characters you have to kinda choose who has lines, you know?

DELAYNE : [Laughs] I must commend you on the bringing everyone in, ‘coz I’m always in awe when people can do an ensemble story and I always wonder what the decision making process is when it comes to fitting these characters to their roles in the story. Was there a character that you had trouble placing, or that you changed their role from when you first plotted out the story?

EMILY : You know, I’m also just took their names and threw them into a hat and pull them out—I’m just kidding [laughs]

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Daring.

EMILY : But [laughs] I’m like, “ooh! They--” you know. No, uhm, I don’t know, I just kind of—I’m overwhelmed with it at times, because it is a lot of people and there’s even times where I went through and I was like, “oh, who did I not use yet? ‘Coz I could really use a name right now that’s actually in the story.” So I think at one point I threw Bethany in [laughs] just randomly, but—well, not randomly, but she—I needed a name, so I--but uhm, no kinda started with like the idea of Nicole having this troubled past so she kinda goes toward the people that might be more trouble, like Wynonna and Rosita. So that’s where that relationship came, and then I really liked the idea of, you know, who doesn’t like a good Papa Nedley? So I was like, “okay, if she moves in with them, then there’s Chrissy,” which I don’t think I’ve ever written in a story, so that’s been really fun ‘coz I really had a lot of fun writing Chrissy Nedley. And, uhm.

DELAYNE : Awesome.

EMILY : With, yeah, with her relationship with Nicole, you know, she’s pretty stubborn but—at first, but she kinda comes around. I don’t know, from there I just kinda like who could be—I just kinda made a list of the characters, to be honest with you, and I put, you know, who is still in high school, who is outta high school, ‘coz there’s like a party that Wynonna’s at and there’s some people that are there, like who would hang out with these people and that kinda thing. It gets a little messy. I did have to make lists, but it’s, yeah. I mean, I kinda stick with like the main people for the most part, like Nicole kinda found her friend group in Purgatory, but then I kinda decided like, “who’s gonna lie in Purgatory? And who’s gonna live in the city?” you know, like that kinda stuff too so. It kinda develops as a write, a little bit. I don’t wanna say it like writes itself, but sometimes it kinda just, I’m like, “oh, that actually works,” so, you know, I just kinda—sometimes it just comes together, sometimes it’s not. But [laughs] it’s a challenge.

DARKWICCAN : We were talking at the primary segment about how, we don’t think we’ve seen Fish and Levi show up yet. You got two chapters left, so.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

EMILY : Oh, man. Alright, challenge accepted.

DARKWICCAN : Alright.

EMILY : I know there’s a lot of—I actually, I was, now that you really say it, there are probably a lot more characters that I haven’t, you know. I don’t think I’ve put in Carl yet, you know. There’s like a lotta—I can go through the revenants now, that’s my next.

DARKWICCAN : There you go.

ALL : [Laughs]

EMILY : Just like a random gang scene.

ALL : [Laughs]

EMILY : Surprise. I mean, the last chapter I wrote was completely out of—not out of, the ordinary but it was like, you know, a whole different ball game, I think. So maybe, you know, I can add something random and I’ll get away with it. So who knows [laughs]

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. I actually—Delayne, I didn’t tell you this, I actually reached out to Emily and I was like, “hey, her text is like all left justified? Uh…”

DELAYNE : I noticed that! I knew it was gonna drive you nuts [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : “And I just didn’t know if this was a mistake?” and Emily comes back with like, “oh dude, no, like I did that on purpose because of reasons.” I’m like, “oh, I should have kept reading, I’m sorry” [laughs]

EMILY : Yeah, I could feel you twitching a little bit.

ALL : [Laughs]

EMILY : No, but then I was like, “oh no, did I do—like, is it wrong? Does it not work that way?” I just started like--,” I was like, “oh man,” [laughs]

DELAYNE : It takes a while to catch up. It took me a few moments and then I realized why you did what you did. Yeah. I made it farther.

EMILY : There’s a lot of back and forth. In some parts where there’s like one sentence, one sentence, so I was like, “ok, so maybe I can get this to work,” and I’ve only been called on it one other time so [laughs]

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : And I misspoke, I said it was all left justified, but it was all right justified, but yeah. I was like, “what is happening right now?” like [laughs] yeah, no, it was actually really clever, a clever way of like showing the differences between reality versus in the character’s head. I thought that was really clever.

EMILY : Well, it’s just trying to—I actually had a friend suggest that for me so thanks to that friend. But, uhm, it was kind of—it was just hard ‘coz I wanted to do that type of scene but this entire story’s in Nicole’s point of view so doing a point of view of a person who’s not conscious is, you know, an interesting thing. So I was like, that chapter I was just so like, “this is the chapter,” like I was so excited about it.

ALL : [Laughs]

EMILY : And then, I’m like, “I don’t know how I’m gonna finish this story,” but I will. I will.

ALL : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : So, speaking of country kids versus city kids, one of the city kids you’ve assigned is the character of Charlie, and you’ve chosen to make him Nicole’s best and longest friend, and also therefore a bit of a troublemaker. What was the inspiration for that? Why make Charlie the troublemaker?

EMILY : I think when I started making—so I had like all the Purgatory kids and then I was like, “okay, they’re gonna go to this city,” so I was like, “I need these people that are gonna be, you know, Nicole’s friends from the city.” It’s not like she’s a complete loner. So I started—I was like, “who can I come up with?” so I was like, as I was writing I wrote, you know, her seeing like Gretta and Maty at the school and then I was like, “who else can I add in here?” so I added in Charlie, and I think just as I started writing his like just the storylines that I started coming up with, I was like, “oh, this kinda—I like this. I like the direction that it’s going.” And then—and it’s interesting ‘coz it’s not, you know, a relationship at all, really, from the show but, I don’t know. It just kinda worked with the way that—in the direction I was going in and so I just kinda rolled with it, and he’s been interesting to write, I like it [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, I think perhaps because we know him from the show as being, you know, an actual angel, in being you know a super, super good guy.

EMILY : Yeah.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : I thought it was really interesting to explore the side of him that we don’t really see too much, we just know from history, of the fact that he and Nicole would get into scrapes together, and but ultimately still, he’s a good guy [laughs]. He’s Charlie.

EMILY : Yeah, and I think that’s what I—I’ve kinda written too, like he’s not a bad kid. He’s just, yeah, he’s her friend. I mean even Nicole, like she’s been into it obviously and but she’s not a bad person either, so [laughs]. I like to kinda put that, you know, just because you’ve made choices doesn’t make ya a bad person, I think.

DARKWICCAN : No, it’s our choices that inform how we move about the world and react to the world, ultimately mature into the world, right? I mean just because you made stupid choices as a kid, doesn’t mean that that’s gonna follow you into adulthood. If anything, it’s potential for you to recognize that those are stupid choices so that as a young adult you start making better ones. Which is I think the case for Nicole here.

EMILY : Yeah, exactly. I think that she’s finally kinda realizing like I don’t have to follow in this pattern anymore, you know, I found something that I can continue making good choices for, and you know, a lot of that is like herself, like she found something in herself that she can finally like continue on, and she sees a future, and she sees these other great things could happen.

DARKWICCAN : Uh-huh.

DELAYNE : Was there something about the storyline of Nicole’s as a troublemaker and in foster care that inspired the fic? Or did it more start as a high school AU and you built Nicole’s back story around that?

EMILY : I think, it’s funny though because I never really—I always said I would never really build a high school AU. That was like my—I’m never writing a high school AU as I control myself ‘coz I was like, and I’ve read them and I think they’re all great. But I was like, I don’t, you know, I’m way out of high school, I don’t resonate with this at all. But I mean I work in high school, so I do see this and I’m like, and I think like the hardest part of writing that is not being rational. ‘Coz there are these scenes where I’m just like, “no, they wouldn’t—like, why would you say that? Or why would you do that?” and I’m like, “oh, because you know, they’re 17-18 years old. That’s why they would do that.” So, writing the high school AU itself was difficult. I was trying to think back to when I first started coming up with this story line and what came first, to be honest with you, and I’m not even sure what came first [laughs] but I do [inaudible]

DELAYNE : [Inaudible]

EMILY : Yeah, yeah, this song came first. And then I went from there. But I think the you know, the high school AU just kinda worked for what I was going for, because the you know, the level of drama, I think, that I brought to the story but the idea of Nicole’s backstory, I think it has been fun for me throughout all my writing because, you know, we don’t know that much about it from the show. So it’s kinda like—I like to take that fly, and apparently I like to take that and kill half her family members, so [laughs] I don’t know.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

EMILY : Because if you look back at all my stories, there’s I think one that her family’s alive and I’m like, and it’s the Christmas one so [laughs]. I don’t know why. I like to, you know, make her—I just—something about troubled Nicole, you know [laughs] I don’t know but it’s easy—I like to write drama, like I get to a point where it sounds bad but like writing, you know, the fluffy part is really hard for me so [laughs] and my friends will be like, “you’re married, and you can’t write fluff?” and I’m like, “that doesn’t mean that I don’t have it in my life. It just means that, you know, it’s just hard to write.” So, and it’s funny, because now I get these comments that if everything’s too happy, all of a sudden like I’m waiting for the drama and I was like, oh, you know, and then here comes like the second to last chapter that I just wrote, everyone would be like, “ah I should have seen it coming, they were too happy” but [laughs] yeah.

DELAYNE :[Laughs] So you’re just an angsty writer? Ok.

EMILY : I guess. But I’m not an angsty person so it’s really funny, but [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : I get that. I totally get that. I get it, yeah. I’m not an angsty person but I love to read angst. I love it.

EMILY : Well, I’m sure I have a lot more for you down the road [laughs].

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yes. This makes me very happy. Yeah, it’s funny. Something that we were chatting about in the previous segment again was that the writing of the story is you have struck this perfect balance between how teenagers actually behave and punching it up with just enough, slightly unrealistic emotional maturity for certain elements, you know, to make sense or to play out, you know, in a way that’s not kinda wacky. The fact that you work with teenagers, that explains a lot.

DELAYNE : Yes. 

EMILY : [Laughs] especially from a therapeutic stance.

DARKWICCAN : Especially from a therapeutic, yeah. Yeah, ‘coz.

EMILY : Because I look at the teenagers and I’m like, “whyyy,” but you know, I understand because that’s the way that their brains work. They’re not there yet.

DARKWICCAN : Exactly.

EMILY : But it’s interesting because some of them are there yet but their actions are caught up to their head yet, you know?

DARKWICCAN : Ah.

EMILY : And I think that’s where Nicole kinda like—I used that a little bit so like her—stuff that’s in her head is like, she’s pretty rational but then it’s like out on the surface she’s not [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : [laughs] Her emotions overtake her logic center.

EMILY : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, yeah.

EMILY : It happens to the rest of us.

ALL : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : You definitely wrote that very well. It just made me so happy once you pretty much said exactly what DW was mentioning in the first segment. I was just like, “woah!”

DARKWICCAN : Yes.

DELAYNE : I’m over here celebrating.

ALL : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : This is awesome, I love this.

EMILY : You guys are mind readers, apparently.

DARKWICCAN : No, you’re just a really excellent author that we’re able to, you know, pick up on this.

EMILY : Thank you.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. So, speaking of being an excellent author, one thing I talked about before as well is the fact that the timing of the story is not rushed. It’s very organic. It’s well-paced, and part of that of course is the slow burn element before for Waverly and Nicole. There was a few stages they have to get through before they ultimately are able to confess their feelings for one another and get into that fantastic WayHaught ship we all love. So, was it difficult for you to maintain that burn before letting the characters finally give into it?

EMILY : Not really, to be honest. They don’t even talk to each other till like chapter 3, but [laughs]. I don’t think, right? It’s chapter 3, I think, she finally gets her name or something like that.

DELAYNE : Yes. It was chapter 3.

EMILY : And then in like chapter 9, you know, they’re—things are finally giving into it, which is funny because when I actually—I was looking at my notes again, and I planned that kiss at the fire to—Waverly was gonna walk away and she was gonna leave, and—not leave but go back to the cabin, and then Nicole was just gonna walk her back. She wasn’t gonna—that whole thing where she’s like, “wait a minute, let me give you a reason,” wasn’t there, so I actually—it was gonna be a longer burn but…

ALL : [Laughs]

EMILY : You know, the—it kinda flowed—the way that it—when I got to that point—I mean, I map out my stories a little bit. Sometimes they just kinda go with it, like I’ll map it out, but then I get to—I finish like one section that I said I was gonna write and then I look at the next section, I’m like, “that’s not work,” so I have to, you know, go back and fix it or whatever. But yeah. I don’t think it was too hard to write, the burn, I probably could have written it more, but.

ALL : [Laughs]

EMILY : I’m not gonna have any readers by the end of [laughs] But, uh...

DELAYNE : Well, you found the balance well.

EMILY : Yeah, ‘coz it wasn’t like there wasn’t anything between there, but there was a lot of arguments and there was her birthday party and all, but [laughs] it was a lot of confusion, I think, on Waverly’s part too because she just—she doesn’t wanna disappoint people but then at some point or another, she was was just kinda like, “you know what? Screw it,” so [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

EMILY : ‘Coz she, I mean if you think about it, like even in high school, like any—when you’re a kid, like you’re growing up in a certain way, just because you don’t feel that same way, it’s still hard to go against what everybody around you is doing or saying.

DARKWICCAN : Oh yeah.

DELAYNE : Definitely feel that [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah.

EMILY : Because it is so for her, I think, that was the biggest thing was why it was a more of a slow burn was because that, she wanted to go and give into it, and you kinda find out like you know Waverly was the one that noticed her from the beginning. I mean they both definitely did, but it was just—there was reasons for it, I think, and it worked out like the slow burn needs to be there.

DARKWICCAN : Oh yeah. I mean I think when you’re a teenager, you just—unless you’re a very, very unique individual—all you wanna do is just fit in and not stand out, and not, you know, be—if you want to stand out, you want to stand out in very specific ways. You don’t wanna be the wrong kind of different.

DELAYNE : Exactly.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, so, and that can follow you through to adulthood. I mean gosh, I mean look at Dominique, you know?

DELAYNE : True!

DARKWICCAN : She said recently in her statement that she was more concerned with being liked than being, you know.

DELAYNE : Herself.

DARKWICCAN : Herself, so yeah.

EMILY : Yeah and it’s not an easy thing to cope with but.

DARKWICCAN : No, it’s not, but I think once you find that—here is the biggest thing that was like the greatest godsend for me, I was never really one to worry too much about what other people thought, but of course in my teenager years, definitely the amount that I worried was much higher than at any other point in my life. But at some point, I don’t remember who said it to me, it was brought to my attention that everyone is so focused on their own crap that no one is really paying attention.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

EMILY : Yeah [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : So, don’t really give two figs about what you perceive other people are thinking of you, because they really truly don’t care. They’re not paying attention.

DELAYNE : ‘Coz they’re worried about how they look,

DARKWICCAN : They’re too caught up in their own stuff. Yep. Exactly.

EMILY : Yeah, yeah. Everybody has their own worries.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, and then once you stop worrying about what other people think, you can finally just relax and start being yourself, truly yourself, and loving yourself and taking, you know, pleasure in that. So. I hope.

EMILY : Yeah, exactly. That’s kinda what I--

DELAYNE : It also helps when you hit 30 [laughs]

EMILY : Yeah [laughs] It’s all downhill from there, right? [laughs] I’m just kidding, I hope not. Well, I’m past 30 but.

ALL : [laughs]

EMILY : I’m doing okay.

DELAYNE : I’m just saying that I was about 30 when I finally realized all of that [laughs].

EMILY : Yeah, it’s—there comes a time when you just can’t care anymore, you’re like, you know.

DARKWICCAN : You’re like, “oh, this is taking too much energy. I just wanna buy my groceries and pay my bills, jesus,” like [laughs]

DELAYNE : And read some fanfic!

DARKWICCAN : Read some freakin’ fanfiction. Yeah.

ALL : [Laughs]

EMILY : Just don’t go closer than 6 feet to anybody when buying your groceries, that’s all.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : That’s right. Make sure you’re wearing your masks and gloves.

EMILY : Yeah, my gosh. It’s a wild world.

DARKWICCAN : It is a wild world, oh my gosh. Well, you know what, we’re going to help you out though with your isolation technique here, Emily. We’re going to strand you on a desert island.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

EMILY : Alright [laughs]

DELAYNE : Alright, so now that you are stranded on this desert island, you have only one fanfic to read, what is it?

EMILY : Uh, I’d have to go with “Let Our Hearts Be The Only Sound” by comelayinmybed and luckywantstoknow.

DARKWICCAN : Nice.

EMILY : Because that’s the first fic I ever wrote—or wrote—I read it, I did not read it—wrote—I can’t speak right now. The first fic I ever read and I just, I would read it over and over and I always tell Climb that on Twitter, and it’s just—yeah, I just love it. It’s so good [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Nice. It is a fantastic story.

EMILY : It is. It’s only one I’ve read more than once so.

ALL : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : And it was the first one that you came across that really brought you in?

EMILY : It really is, and I used to sit there every Sunday and I was like, “when are they gonna update this?” and then I’m the one that like, you know when I post—I used to post on Saturdays [laughs] until all the stuff started happening. I understand why people are like, “when are you gonna post it?” I’m like, “ugh,” but [laughs] because I was there once but it’s hard [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : It can be hard to stick to a schedule. It absolutely can be. But I am more than happy to provide a link with our show notes to “Let Our Heart Be The Only Sound” by comelayinmybed and luckywantstoknow.

EMILY : Yes, read it.

DARKWICCAN : Yes, you must read it! And please do also read “Beautiful People” by our guest Emily, aka wayhaughtertthanthat. Emily, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been a blast chatting with you.

EMILY : Thank you guys for having me.

MUSIC: Don’t Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Maddigan

DARKWICCAN: And that's all for this episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Thanks for joining us. Tremendous thanks to Wayhaughtertthanthat for chatting with us about their work!

Thanks also to our announcer Byron Tidwell for our intro. 

Background music for the episode was:

A Proper Story by Darren Korb, Coalescence by Chris Christodoulou, Uptown Girl BY Billy Joel, and the outro music is Don't Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Madigan

If you have questions or comments for the podcast you can find us on Twitter at E-F-A underscore Podcast and on Facebook at E-F-A Podcast. 

And you can find all of our episodes, old and new, at our website E-F-A Podcast dot com.

And if you're listening on iTunes, please take a moment to rate and review our show.

Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you'll join us again next time for another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Until then, READ MORE FIC!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Episodes post Mondays at 8am PST
> 
> Visit our Website http://efapodcast.com/ for all episodes old and new!
> 
> Follow us on Twitter: @efa_podcast
> 
> And on Facebook: facebook.com/EFAPodcast


	5. Fostering Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This week DW and Delayne chat with returning author Maidenstar and her fic 'Nearing Home'.

[Click HERE to Listen!](http://efapodcast.com/fostering-love)

Read the Fic! 

####  [Nearing Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21380386) by [maidenstar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maidenstar/pseuds/maidenstar)

Episode Artwork by Chantal Zeegers

Episode transcript by ApproxTenCats

Ep 405: Fostering Love 

[ph] – Indicates preceding word has been spelled phonetically

[sic] – Indicates preceding word has been transcribed verbatim

MUSIC : Write My Story by Olly Anna

ANNOUNCER GUY : You've tuned in to the  _ Earp Fiction Addiction _ , a fan podcast all about  _ Wynonna Earp _ fanfiction. Join our intrepid host DarkWiccan and Delayne as they dive deep into the sometimes sweet, sometimes spicy, and always varied world of fanfiction for the  _ Wynonna Earp _ fandom.

MUSIC : A Proper Story by Darren Korb

DARKWICCAN:  Thanks Announcer Guy and welcome everybody to this week’s episode of the  _ Earp Fiction Addiction _ , the podcast dedicated entirely to  _ Wynonna Earp _ fanfiction. I am your host DarkWiccan, and with me the absolute opposite of a juvenile delinquent is my delightful co-host... 

DELAYNE: Hi, it’s Delayne.

DARKWICCAN: And we are still in quarantine, who knows how long this is going to go on. It is currently mid-April-ish here, by the time this airs it will be mid-May-ish. Maybe we’ll be out, no we won’t. We’ll still be in quarantine, let’s be honest about this people. [emphatic] I miss faces. 

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: How about you Delayne? How are you managing? It feels like for you not a whole lot has changed?

DELAYNE: No, I just go to work and go home like really that’s all I’ve been doing for quite a while so… the few new friends that I have made i haven’t been able to see, so that makes me a little sad, but...

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, it’s like, man, I’m used to getting up in the morning, catching the train, that’s not happening, taking it all the way into the big city, you know. Being able to walk to the nearby bodega for lunch snack type things. Nope, I’m at home, and I love my home because my kid is here and so is my wife, and I love both of them immensely, and I am so grateful to be able to spend this additional time with them at home, but I miss people. 

DELAYNE: [laughs] Well, I mean I have roommates so I get to hang out with them.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, but it’s not the same...

DELAYNE: No, it’s not the same.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, it’s not the same as going down to your local pub and, you know, the subtle roar of the crowd, right?

DELAYNE: And I did actually just find a local brewery that I started going to, and when things first shut down I went to go and support them and bought a growler but I like to just go sit at the bar and have a pint. Not happening now.

DARKWICCAN: Not happening now, strange times we are living in, strange times. What’s that old… oh gosh, I can’t remember the culture that it’s from but I think it’s a curse, “may you live in interesting times.”

DELAYNE: I have not heard that one.

DARKWICCAN: Oh, you’ve not heard that one? Yeah it is from a culture like… not white. I want to say it’s either Chinese or Japanese or it’s an Asian culture, like quote I genuinely… I could be completely wrong and will have people on the Twitter feed going, “no you idiot, it’s Meso-American,” or… I don’t know. But yeah it’s “may you live in interesting times'' and I think it’s either a blessing or a curse but I think it’s generally intended to be a curse. And boy are we living in interesting times, but hey you know what we’ve still got?

DELAYNE: We have fanfiction, and podcasts? 

DARKWICCAN: And each other. Jeez Delayne.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: I know what your priorities are now, gahd.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: But we also have those things too, we have fanfiction and we have podcasts and the ability to chat with each other through technology, we are very very lucky to have this technology. There are folks who don’t so I’m very very grateful that we’ve got it. [CONTENT CENSORED. PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT] Just listening to the show and telling your friends to listen to the show is also a huge help, we’ll take it how we can get it, love is love damnit. And we love you guys and appreciate all your help and support. So yeah, there’s that.

DELAYNE: Beautiful. Well said. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Thank you, I appreciate that. So let’s talk about the fic we selected this week. Now I mentioned in last week’s episode, last week’s episode and this week’s episode talk about fics that are kinda similar in premise but the execution is very different. Last week we talked about  _ Beautiful People _ which is a situation where Nicole is placed in the foster care of Randy Nedley, it is a High School AU as well, and how she kind of navigates living in this beautiful, wealthy, rich land of Purgatory, [pause] still a concept. So we talked about that as a fish out of water story, similarly this week is also a fish out of water story, it’s also a High School AU, it’s also a situation where Nicole has been uprooted and placed in the care of people not her family, or not her blood family I should say. And in both instances you have a situation where Nicole was a bit of a bad boi, B-O-I, bad boi in having to reform. So those are the similarities between last week’s story and this week’s story. This week’s story is called  _ Nearing Home _ and it’s by the author Maidenstar who is, full disclosure, a friend of the podcast. She’s been on the show a number of times at this point. But that’s because she writes good fic y’all, she writes good fic. Also her accent is amazing and we really love a good accent on this show. But  _ Nearing Home _ is inspired by a LGBT YA fiction novel called  _ Taking Flight _ by an author by the name of Siera Maley. And so that’s really where Maidenstar got her inspiration for this fic. Now, there are of course differences. It’s one thing, inspiration is not like, “I’m going to take this, I’m going to completely copy it and change the name,” that’s not how that works. Inspiration is ”huh, that’s a cute interesting idea, here’s my take on it.” Right? So that’s what we got here. In this instance Nicole is living in, I want to say, the LA area… my brain just farted.

DELAYNE: Ottawa.

DARKWICCAN: Ottawa, this is fully Canadian, thank you. I’m like, I’m confusing the inspiration and the fanfiction, oopsies.

DELAYNE: Oh. have you read it, or did you just read up on it?

DARKWICCAN: I read up on it. So the story of  _ Taking Flight _ starts in LA, and the character is taken from LA to Georgia so major culture shock.

DELAYNE: Oh wow. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, major culture shock. In this case we’ve got starting in Ottawa and then going to Purgatory. So Nicole has two parents that are still together, unfortunately they’re super negligent. And they just kinda have decided that they’re going to go on and live their lives and forget about the fact that they have a kid at home that needs structure and support. 

DELAYNE: Right? Oh my gosh.

DARKWICCAN: So, Nicole being resourceful and a self-starter, she is essentially taking care of herself. She gets herself a job, so she’s supporting herself in that way. She’s still going to school, she’s making great grades, but she tends to miss school a lot, because either, she’s taking care of her family cat who is elderly and needs attention, she is too out of it...

DELAYNE: Hasn’t eaten.

DARKWICCAN: Hasn’t eaten. She’s too out of it to function because she doesn’t have the money to buy food, she’s in between paychecks and her parents didn’t leave her with any money. There’s legitimate reasons why she can’t be in school but she also doesn’t have a parent to be able to write her a note. Right? 

DELAYNE: This was after when she was a little bit younger and trying to get attention and really leaning into the rebellious phase.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, she did. When she was a youth, younger than the age she is now in this story she thought, “well, if my parents won’t pay attention to me for doing good stuff, being a good kid and making good grades, then I’m going to do the exact opposite and rebel and maybe that’ll get their attention.” So she did get herself in a little bit of trouble enough that she developed a wee bit of a troublemaker reputation but the fact of the matter is, any sane person is going to look at what this kid is doing to survive, and the fact that she went, “you know what, the rebellious streak isn’t working, and I’m not happy, so I’m just going to go ahead and be a good kid again and I’m going to be serious about it because I actually enjoy school.” 

DELAYNE: Nerd.

DARKWICCAN: Nerd! “And I’m going to do what I can to knuckle down and try to make a future for myself.” And that is, you know, that’s great.

DELAYNE: Reasonable.

DARKWICCAN: That’s reasonable.

DELAYNE: Nicole is impressive.

DARKWICCAN: Is a logical, reasonable, kid. And maybe she is that way because she’s had to take care of herself and really have to scrabble to make sure that she’s okay. So she plays soccer, she’s looking for soccer as a means to college, right? Her coach is Coach Xavier Dolls. And you know despite the fact that she basically is parentless and she is hungry a lot of the time, she is managing. I’m not going to say she’s doing okay, I’m going to say she’s managing. But, then her cat gets sick, and she has to take the cat to the vet which means missing a day of school and unfortunately this missing day of school is the one that sets the entire plot in motion. And I say “unfortunately”, it’s unfortunate for her, it’s fortunate for the rest of us. So basically she gets taken into court, truancy court, and the judge… even though she plans to go in and just be a very tough-as-nails, “you can’t get anything out of me copper” kinda...

DELAYNE: Yeah, I just missed school, that’s all, that’s it.

DARKWICCAN: That’s it. Yep. Unfortunately the judge, again unfortunately for her, fortunate for us, and really fortunate for her in the long run, the judge is able to suss out the fact that “hey, wait a minute, where are your parents?” And really just keeps leaning on that question until Nicole breaks down and essentially just lets everything go.

DELAYNE: Yeah. “Yeah, they’re not here, if you find them let me know.”

DARKWICCAN: Yeah. So she just spills the beans, yes. So the judge basically says “well, clearly your parents are negligent, and they haven’t given you a fair shake, and that’s not fair to you, so I’m going to try to give you a reasonable chance.” And packed her off to Purgatory, to a place she’s never been, to live with people she doesn’t know. And that is really when the story really gets its feet under it and really gets rolling. So she has to go and live with the McCreadys, as we know Curtis and Gus, and in Curtis and Gus’ care are Wynonna and Waverly. Wynonna is an adult at this point but still living at home. Waverly is in high school, she is the same grade as Nicole is, they’re both seniors?

DELAYNE: Yes. That is correct.

DARKWICCAN: Thank you. And Nicole and Waverly have to share a room and there are only… two beds. 

DELAYNE: [laughs] When they first met and they said, “oh yeah, you’ll be sharing a room,” I was like oh this is going to get interesting. I didn’t think there’d only be one bed, but being in close quarters does make for some...

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, exactly, and eventually things do happen, because it’s a Wayhaught story right? But really this story is more about Nicole and her journey to realising that she’s not alone. She does have people in her life, even if they’re court ordered, to start with, to start with. There are people in her life who care about her, and who want her to have the type of time that a child, because she is still a child, don’t tell a teenager they’re a child, they will flip their friggin’ lids on you, but they are, they are. And I recognise this as an adult now looking back at myself as a teen, I was like “oh man I was such a kid,” you know.

DELAYNE: [laughs] Exactly.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, and kids shouldn’t have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, they shouldn’t have to be worried about money. They should just be able to grow and learn and develop their personalities and their takes on the world in a nurturing and supportive environment where they don’t have to stress about stuff that really shouldn’t be on their radar to stress about.

DELAYNE: Yeah.

DARKWICCAN: And that’s what the McCreadys give her. Now in addition to that they also give her therapy. [laughs] So yeah, what was your opinion of the little mini therapy sessions?

DELAYNE: Well, I liked that they were active, not like you’re sat on this couch. Or am I incorrect?

DARKWICCAN: No you’re totally right.

DELAYNE: [inaudible]

DARKWICCAN: You’re totally right. That is something I enjoyed too. It’s almost like, “here, muck this stall while we talk about deep things so that you’re distracted by the fact that you’re shovelling poop, you don’t have to think about the fact that I’m challenging you with these questions and kind of digging into your experiences.” [laughs]

DELAYNE: And Nicole’s resistance is great. It seems so real.

DARKWICCAN: Yes.

DELAYNE: She’s so reluctant and yet she also doesn’t want to tell him the truth but then something pisses her off and the way she fights it, I mean it’s probably healthy to get that stuff out. So I’ve been told. But yeah, it seems very real, and on-brand for a seventeen year old especially.

DARKWICCAN: Exactly. It’s so true to form and as you say, real that Nicole would be pushing back and pushing back and trying to stay tight-lipped and trying not to give up anything. And yet because she doesn’t have the sophistication of an adult mind, you know she’s very smart, don’t get me wrong...

DELAYNE: Yes.

DARKWICCAN: She’s very smart and she’s mature for her age. But there’s something about being an adult and living in the adult world and being able to navigate these conversations as an adult, where your guards are a little bit more sophisticated, right? Nicole doesn’t have that in place so she pushes back as much as she can but Curtis knows what he’s doing because he’s dealt with teens, this is what he does right? And he manages to push just the right buttons to get her defences to drop and for her to go “bleurgh” and here comes the truth.” And I love the teen logic too, it’s so true to form, Nicole’s teen logic is just so real. In that she thinks she’s being logical.

DELAYNE: Right, as kids do. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: As kids do. But she’s really not. And that’s something that we actually touched on with Wayhaughterthanthat when we were chatting with them last week is their ability in being a therapist as well as their ability to write that thought process of teens thinking that they’re being so… “you know, this makes sense man, I don’t understand why you don’t understand why this is the most clear logical sensible way forward.”

DELAYNE: And the most important thing ever.

DARKWICCAN: Exactly, exactly, and that’s something that Maidenstar has tackled exceptionally well here as well. I’m just living in the department of redundancy department today, aren't I? I’m just using the same words over and over again. Sorry thesaurus.

DELAYNE: [laughs] I really, I don’t know, we tend to try to avoid to be spoilery but her relationship with Robin and the whole coming out thing and when she’s first confronted, she’s already seen the terribleness, they’ve already showed her how it can get, she’s gleaned from Robin how bad it can be with just a rumour. And Stephanie asks her directly and she says no. But it wouldn’t matter if it was yes. But she essentially said no. It’s like hoo this is going to get... interesting.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, it’s so hard to see, especially folks who previously are more or less out, even if it’s just to close friends, have to closet themselves. Really it’s painful, it’s a painful thing to watch. Because you know, you know in that moment that they’re having to lie for self-preservation, and how horrible is that?

DELAYNE: It sucks.

DARKWICCAN: It’s awful. And it’s something that I think we, we as queer people, can all relate to. It’s demoralising. Guess I don’t get to be me, so I’ll put on a little show for you.

DELAYNE: Yeah. I was lucky when I came out of the closet, I never really had to go back in. Maybe at work or with random strangers you just don’t answer their creepy questions.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, I think for the most part I am out all of the time, but even here in the Pacific Northwest, in a very liberal part of America, in the past, in days of yore, when we could call a Lyft or an Uber, get into a stranger’s car, go somewhere. Tthere were times when a Lyft driver would try to engage me in conversation, and they’d ask me, a lot of times I’d get a Lyft from my wife’s office to my place of work in the morning if we had missed the train because sometimes that would happen. Someone would pick me up from my wife’s office and be like, “so you heading home from work?” It’s like, normally I’d be like, “no, no, I’m going into work, this is where my wife works so I’m just picking up a ride from my wife’s office.” And sometimes it’d be like, “so you heading home from work?” and I’d just be like, “yup.” [sad laugh]

DELAYNE: I work in this office building, take me there.

DARKWICCAN: Yep, exactly, I work in this office building in downtown… Well it’s Seattle, everyone knows I live in Seattle, I work in Seattle. So it’s like, “yes, I work there, I live there, I do both, anyway.” Or someone would ask me, “are you married?” or something like that. 

DELAYNE: Why is that your damn business?

DARKWICCAN: And I find myself playing the pronoun game, you know. And it’s like, woah, wait a minute, what am i doing? Why am I censoring myself? Oh yeah, because I’m in a strangers car and the vibe I get off of them isn’t a hundred percent on my team, so for my own safety I have to play the pronoun game and here I am in my late thirties playing the pronoun game again, what the hell. You know?

DELAYNE: Yeah, so seeing that play out in the story… I’m just short on words today.

DARKWICCAN: Me too, as noted by my redundant usage of them.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: See how many times I can say “logical” and “sophisticated” over and over again.

DELAYNE: [laughs] Um.

DARKWICCAN: I like treehouses. Do you like treehouses? How’s that for a segway? 

DELAYNE: [laughs] I actually have always adored tree houses. When we first moved to Idaho when I was five there was a partial tree house. There was ladders, there were steps on this tree, the second day I’m there I’m climbing up it and I grab onto a branch that pulls free and I fall onto the gravel below.

DARKWICCAN: Oh god. But still treehouses man, they rock.

DELAYNE: Yeah, I love treehouses.

DARKWICCAN: Why are we bringing up treehouses? Because there is a treehouse prominent in this story. There is Waverly and Wynonna’s tree house that Curtis built for them when they were younger. Really built it more for Waverly than Wynonna. And this really becomes a confessional if you will, for the things Waverly and Nicole want to say that they feel they can’t say when they’re within the walls of the McCready home. You know, the walls have ears, and there’s something to be said for that extra little bit of privacy that you need to be able to come to face with personal truths. So I really really love the use of the tree house in this way.

DELAYNE: The safe space.

DARKWICCAN: We all need that safe space that is away from adults. Even adults need spaces that are safe and away from adults. Right?

DELAYNE: Right? Well to answer my question first because I’m not sure I read this properly, but that’s where they took the horses to? The first time?

DARKWICCAN: No.

DELAYNE: No?

DARKWICCAN: That’s a separate safe space. So Waverly has her safe space that’s away from the McCready property, it’s on the property but it’s away from the big house and everything. And it’s this sort of secret pond that she’s discovered where she likes to go when she needs some time to herself. Time just to be alone by herself. And she makes the decision of course to share this space with Nicole because she figures Nicole also needs a space where she can go and feel like she’s not under watchful eyes. So that’s the first safe space. The second safe space is the tree house. And yeah, there’s so much that I’m curious about what was borrowed from the inspirational novel  _ Taking Flight _ and brought into this? How much was changed? Including, it seems like, because I didn’t have time to sit down and read the novel guys, I only really have time to read fiction these days, and when I say fiction I mean fanfiction. Anyway, so it seems like from what I read of the novel that the character that Nicole’s based on is a bit more wild, a bit more rebellious, a bit more putting herself in dangerous illegal situations compared to our Nicole here. It also seems like the character in the novel wanted to make life as difficult as possible for her care-takers, and that’s not the case for Nicole’s character. She’s like, “well I don’t want to be here and I’m going to find a way to get out, but in the meantime I’m just going to cooperate because it’s not worth it to add on this addition of me being a pain in the ass to this situation.” So that’s different. So I’m curious about this stuff and obviously the only person who has the answers is the author Maidenstar. So why don’t we wrap up here and go and chat with her in our second segment, but before we do that...

DELAYNE: Sounds like a fantastic idea.

[CONTENT CENSORED. PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT]

  
  
  


DARKWICCAN: And welcome back everybody to the  _ Earp Fiction Addiction _ , the podcast dedicated entirely to  _ Wynonna Earp _ fanfiction. I remain your host DarkWiccan, and with me is my wonderful co-host...

DELAYNE: Hi, it’s Delayne.

DARKWICCAN: And joining us to chat about the fantastic fic  _ Nearing Home _ that we discussed in the primary segment is the wonderful author of that story Maidenstar. Welcome back to the show.

MAIDENSTAR: Hi thanks for having me again.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, thanks for joining us. We were talking in the first segment about we’re living in quote “interesting times” right now and it’s wonderful that we’ve got this technology to be able to stay in touch with each other.

MAIDENSTAR: Yeah, definitely. I think the whole fandom there’s so many friendships that have formed that are long-distance. We’re all prepared. It’s a horrible horrible time and we’re all sticking together but we’ve all kind of been prepared for the distance, and we’ve got the tech there to keep in touch.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, I think long distance relationships, be they friendships or romantic or what have you, is something that particularly queer people are exceptionally good at. [laughs]

DELAYNE: We’re pretty good at it.

MAIDENSTAR: We’ve got some practice.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah exactly. We’ve got so much practice at this. I feel like this whole self-isolation thing, you know this is a moment where introverts and queer people go, “our time has come.” We’ve been training for this our entire lives.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

MAIDENSTAR: We’re ready.

DARKWICCAN: We are ready. We’re ready for this. So things are going okay for you over there in the islands?

MAIDENSTAR: Yeah, things aren’t too bad. We were already pretty isolated as it was. And you know, I’m from a small place, lots of nice places to get out so when I get out of my house I’ve got some nice places to go. It could be a heck of a lot worse I have to say. I’m very lucky.

DARKWICCAN: This is true. This is absolutely true. You could be in the gulag.

MAIDENSTAR: [inaudible]

DARKWICCAN: Not the… no the gulag means prison. You could be in Siberia which is where the gulag is. I knew what I meant. Okay folks.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: What day is it? I don’t know. Do days exist anymore?

MAIDENSTAR: No one knows anymore.

DARKWICCAN: No one knows. What is time? It’s a construct. Anyway so we were chatting last week about a fic that kind of had a similar premise. We did this on purpose Maidenstar, we talked about their fic last week and we talk about your fic this week to highlight the differences and how you can have stories that have a similar idea but have such a different dynamic execution. So thanks for being our guinea pig. And thank you also for joining us for our live read, our first live read a couple of weeks ago. That was really cool. You did such a fantastic job.

MAIDENSTAR: Thank you. I don’t know why… I was quite nervous when I came to do it. I don’t know why actually, I mean you know it’s not too difficult a concept really to sit and read something I’ve written out but yeah I was really nervous. It went really really well and everyone did fantastic jobs and it’s such a great idea and such a nice way to connect with everyone at that time.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, and you know, honestly Maidenstar you could just flip open your phone book and read that and I’d be enraptured because you have such a lovely lovely sound.

MAIDENSTAR: Oh thank you. It’s strange, I mean you guys must be super used to hearing yourself recorded and then hearing yourself back but I still have that horrible quite human reaction of hearing my voice played back to me and just wanting to apologise to everyone I’ve ever said a word to, ever.

ALL: [laughs]

DELAYNE: It’s still a little strange for me but people seem to like my giggles so you know.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, it’s so strange, it’s like when I listen back to do the editing for the shows it’s weird in that I’m sort of detached from myself, i’m in a producer role at that point, a producer/editor role. So when I’m listening to myself it’s like I’m not listening to myself if that makes any kind of sense. I’m listening to the talent, not that I’m talented.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: But I’m listening to the talent speak and it’s my job to make them sound a little better than they may have sounded at the initial recording.

MAIDENSTAR: I mean, it depends, I think with me that’ll be a hard job.. Not going to make too many presumptions.

DARKWICCAN: [laughs] Very very little editing for you my friend, very very little. If any.

DELAYNE: DW is an excellent producer I must say.

DARKWICCAN: Stop buttering me up. [laughs]

DELAYNE: I know the stupid shit that goes on behind the scenes. I’m so glad you don’t share that with the world.

DARKWICCAN: No, just [REDACTED] members.

DELAYNE: Right. [laughs]

MAIDENSTAR: [several inaudible words]

DARKWICCAN: Hmm?

MAIDENSTAR: That’s the kind of content that you pay for.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, that is the content that our patrons pay for and that I need to put up more of. But let’s chat about this fantastic story  _ Nearing Home _ . I’m excited to dig into this but I’m gonna step back actually and let Delayne take first pass, because I’m ready to dig in but I don’t want to railroad her like I normally do.

DELAYNE: Thanks I appreciate that.

DARKWICCAN: You bet. Choo choo.

DELAYNE: So the inspiration for the story is from an actual novel by a different author, and first of all you’ve done a wonderful job of it...

MAIDENSTAR: Oh, thank you.

DELAYNE: Was there anything that was like a direct description or dialogue that you did bring over? And was there anything you wanted to but you couldn’t because it just wasn’t working.

MAIDENSTAR: I think in terms of wanting to bring stuff over there’s actually probably more that I knew I didn’t want to bring over. In the book the main character moves to a family where, I think the father is actually a qualified psychiatrist or a counsellor, I can’t remember exactly what his role is but I think it’s something a lot more qualified in that there’s sort of a profession in there. And a lot of what he did and said was so more obviously based in him having that background. And I kind of specifically wanted to avoid that because it just didn’t fit the image of Curtis in this universe or literally canon, or any other universe that I had in my head. Similarly you’ve got characters in the book, the mother and the sibling, they’re not at all likeable in some ways and they’re a bit harder to warm to than I think Gus and Wynonna are. So I was conscious about using the premise of the book and actually letting the  _ Wynonna Earp _ characters almost take over the story once the premise was in place. But there are a couple of scenes, like the scene in the book that I’ve always remembered really well from the first time I read it was where the Curtis figure takes out the Nicole figure… it’s really weird to be describing an original work in the terms of the fanfic but… basically the Curtis figure in the book takes the Nicole figure out and I think they play a game of tennis, they get snacks and they get drinks and they talk, and it’s one of the first time that Nicole - in air signs - character lets her guard down and it basically, I think there’s a couple of scenes in the fanfic I used any kind of Curtis one-on-one time is based on that sort of thing, they have a fair few solo chats. There is a particular scene in the greenhouse though, that kind of directly corresponds to the first time Nicole’s character opens up, and there’s also a scene in the book where the Curtis character encourages letter writing which I think is very obviously corresponds to the letter Nicole writes in the fanfic.

DARKWICCAN: Gotcha, gotcha. So you basically borrowed ideas and premises but then gave it your own take.

MAIDENSTAR: Yeah absolutely. I was kind of interested in what that rough storyline would look like in the  _ Wynonna Earp _ universe but I didn’t feel that I necessarily needed to keep loads and loads from the book in there to kind of make the story. I think it was more important to be true to the characters from  _ Wynonna Earp _ than it was to rigidly follow the structure of the book if it wasn’t going to work.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, speaking to that, the character from the book that you base Nicole on, and this is based solely on the description because I haven’t had time to read the book, based on the description from the novel the character from the book that you based Nicole on seems to be far more what we would consider to be delinquent behaviour than Nicole ever came close to in your story. So was that a conscious decision there to opt to make Nicole less problematic?

MAIDENSTAR: Yeah, it was. And yeah, you’re right, having read the book the other character is quite a lot more sort of quote unquote “delinquent.” And I initially had some drafts where Nicole was a bit more sort of… her actions were a bit more in that vein. I had a few sort of ideas for some sort of middling misdemeanors but I kind of felt there was no one big definitive reason why I didn’t go with that option, but there were sort of a few little reasons they kind of stacked up. I liked, just kind of, it felt a little more canon to the Nicole we know. I know we’ve got some allusions towards past behaviour, I just think that there’s an acknowledgement there in the fic itself that the younger version did act out a lot more than the Nicole that we actually meet at the start of the fanfic. And I thought having Nicole in that place we meet her, I felt I had more scope to follow the internal journey I wanted her to have. I sort of wanted to almost frame her as someone who had been so let down by the people who were supposed to give her the care and everything she needed that it had totally reframed how she saw herself and actually that her outward actions weren’t how she was seeing herself as a result. And I just think it also felt a little more realistic to Nicole’s situation that she’d gone past her acting out phase and she was more just into the tired, resolutely turning out, and getting through each day and each week as well as she could with what she had. And I just felt that was a little bit more realistic to the place Nicole would have been in kind of versus the character in the original book.

DARKWICCAN: Not only that but I think more interesting, because there’s so many takes on the whole juvenile delinquent character, you know? The acting out, the getting into trouble, whether it be petty theft, drugs, you know at the worst end of it, things like that. You know skipping out to go to rock and roll parties, or whatever, I don’t know. Kind of this sort of stereotypical quote unquote “juvenile teen delinquent” kind of thing. I think that was far more interesting to have a take where we have a far more world weary teenager who as you say has just gotten past that, she’s sowed her oats in that respect of been rebellious and got it out of her system and now it’s just like, “okay, I’ve just got to survive.”

DELAYNE: Just trying to get by.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah. So i think that was a very unique and wise decision.

MAIDENSTAR: Thank you yeah. I think it felt quite true to Nicole to have her in a position where she just was kind of getting her head down and getting on with it and doing the best she could. That feels like a Nicole trait to me so I think it felt quite natural to put her in that mindset at the start of the fanfic. 

DELAYNE: It was very well done because I have met a few young people who had to take care of themselves earlier in their life than they should have. And it seems very true, very real, so kudos to that.

DARKWICCAN: And yet you still managed to hold on to that teen mindset where they think they’re being logical and reasonable but they’re really just off centre of true reasonability.

MAIDENSTAR: yeah, I remember that phase in my life with quite a degree of clarity so I think that a part of that might be a little bit of the author creeping into character. But I remember that phase of my life where I was absolutely certain how I was looking at things was absolutely one hundred percent right and it was, as you say, just a little bit off.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, and just off enough that it’s actually not good for you.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

MAIDENSTAR: Yeah, and I think that it’s important to try and get those things as right as possible and what you were saying about knowing individuals who have been put in that horrible position where they’re having to care for themselves far earlier than they should. Both those things are quite serious sort of topics to get right and I wanted to make sure that they were as right as possible because there will be people who had that sort of responsibility put on them and it’s important to try and get it all right from the character’s internal perspective.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, absolutely.

DELAYNE: Yeah. Well you did an excellent job. Well, let's get back to the fic. So I ran some numbers and your chapters average almost 12,000 words. So I want to know why did you opt for these longer chapters? Was it a conscious decision? Did it just happen that way? Is, maybe is the book, since I haven’t read the book, do those have long chapters? 

MAIDENSTAR: Yeah, no, this is a really boring answer but it did really just happen like that. I mean I don’t really have much going for me when it comes to brevity. It’s something that I’m trying to improve on because it is completely skill in itself, and it's not one of mine. And I can admit that freely. I do like the freedom that long chapters offer me, like I find them easy to work with and easy to structure. And it’s kind of funny that you brought this up because it’s something that I really wish I didn’t do as much as I do. I know when I did this one I wrote chapter one and it is pretty much exactly the length it still is now, I wrote a good few more chapters and I could see how long they were getting and I tried to divide them up. A couple of times when I divided them up they did work but a lot more just lost the flow once I changed where they divided up so I decided to leave them as they were. And because I’m someone who is annoyingly quite a stickler for consistent chapter lengths I sort of backed myself into this corner quite early on of kind of continuing. But writing such long chapters on this one has helped with that actually because when it comes down to it it’s absurdly long whether it’s nine or twelve thousand, it’s still unreasonable. So arbitrarily adding more to a chapter if it’s just a case of a bit more, it’s just really not good writing and it’s not something I’d actually consciously attempt to do. But yeah no, I backed myself into this corner early and as much as I’m sure some readers have regretted that I have probably regretted it more than you. So yeah they are exceptionally long aren’t they?

DELAYNE: I don’t mind. I honestly have no preference. It’s always interesting to see each individual author, you know, why do they do the things they do?

MAIDENSTAR: Yeah, you know, I sort of read them through obviously, to edit them and to put them up there. I don’t know, I get through them sometimes and I sort of think, full admiration to anyone who actually bothers to do the same because they are long.

DARKWICCAN: I adore how long these chapters are. I love a good long chapters. Give me a 12,000 plus word chapter any day of the week. I love getting stuck in to the storytelling. And I love the fact that your chapters don’t end until they feel like they naturally should. Whereas sometimes I feel like authors will force an end or maybe try to chop up one long cohesive chapter into smaller chapters and try to cut off at points that feel like, I don’t know, a little cliffhanger-y or kind of abrupt end. So I much prefer the long...

DELAYNE: The longer more wrapped up?

DARKWICCAN: The longer, yeah, mhmm.

MAIDENSTAR: Yeah, I mean as I say that’s what I ended up doing when I wrote the first… probably it was a good few chapters before I then looked at restructuring and as I say I didn’t like the way it came out whenever I carved them up so that was the main motivation for leaving them. So it is good to know that they do have that feeling to them as a reader as well because that was what I was still trying to achieve with it.

DARKWICCAN: Nailed it. Something we chatted about last week's story was that Dolls was Nicole’s probation officer, in the story from last week. In your story Dolls is her coach, closer in age to her but still a subtle authority figure in her life. What do you think it is about this character of Dolls that just allows him to work so well in these semi-paternal roles?

MAIDENSTAR: Yeah, he definitely does. For me I think Dolls onscreen just evolved to have this really perfect mix of cocky, arrogant, overwhelmingly competent and detached but secretly sort of quite soft and quite caring that it was quite an interesting dynamic for me to unpack in stories. And I think he has such a vibe of a leader, and at least he does when he balances being a bit kinder with that sort of slightly kind of assholey kind of vibe he has always had throughout the show. When he has a slightly more personable side to him and lets people get closer he has such an air of being a good leader. And it really felt like, in canon as well, he and Nicole were developing that kind of dynamic. Especially when it came to research for the cult and the fact that they shared backgrounds. There was a trust and a guidance aspect there that I just think makes that dynamic so perfect that dynamic in fic and it’s great to see it being taken and played around with in different settings. But i just think the show was so wonderfully building up that dynamic onscreen prior to obviously Dolls sadly dying. It’s such a fascinating dynamic to explore.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, definitely. I completely agree with you.

DELAYNE: Yes. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Delayne I love how articulate you are.

DELAYNE: [laughs] I am very articulate. And I come up with such interesting questions, like so the tree house obviously has a lot of meaning. Are tree houses popular, over there?

MAIDENSTAR: I feel like there’s a lot of responsibility here for me to now be spokeswoman for the UK tree house enthusiasts out there.

ALL: [laughs]

MAIDENSTAR: I mean in particular as a result of me kind of not being, only sort of being UK. I feel like I could speak out of turn for them here. I don’t know. I’d hazard a guess that they’re not as popular as the little garden sheds and playhouses just on the basis that they’re practical and a house in a tree isn't necessarily that practical. I don’t know. What I can say with a greater degree of certainty is that I wanted a tree house very desperately as a child. 

DELAYNE: Ah.

MAIDENSTAR: That dream was largely hindered by the lack of trees in my garden. But that didn’t stop me from dreaming. I think I was just living my wishes through Waverly there. I don’t know. I do also think that Curtis would definitely have been the kind of person to build Waverly a tree house so...

DARKWICCAN: Yes.

MAIDENSTAR: I don’t know if I’ve answered that question well enough by talking about me wanting a tree house, but no honestly I don’t think they’re super popular over here. no.

DELAYNE: Well, I guess your inspiration and your connection, that’s what we’re looking for. So thank you for answering.

MAIDENSTAR: It is fiction right, so [inaudible] dream. Dream scenario.

DARKWICCAN: Exactly. And tree houses, the reason, and Delayne stop me if I’m wrong here, I think the reason that her question was inspired is that tree houses are such a cornerstone of Americana that they’re this sort of sacred space for the child. When the child needs a place to get away to that is safe and away from, but still under the watchful care of the parents or the caretakers, the tree house is their space. There’s the whole “no boys allowed”, “no girls allowed”, “only members of such-and-such club that they just made up five minutes ago allowed here” kind of thing. It’s space that children feel they have more control over in their lives than they feel like maybe they have while they’re under their parents roof, or caretakers roof.

MAIDENSTAR: Yeah, absolutely. Maybe that’s all just contextualised why I desperately wanted a treehouse. Maybe that’s the [inaudible] that’s been answered today.

DARKWICCAN: Here to help.

DELAYNE: I’m guessing because Purgatory, they have a lot of property, there’s gonna be more trees, you opted for the tree house because it’s something you wanted instead of the garden shed, which I have had cousins which had had a very nice little club house shed going on. But I like my treehouse.

MAIDENSTAR: Yeah, I think that’s just a slightly more romantic way of saying there’s a treehouse rather than a shed. I just think maybe that lacks the romantic aspect I was going for. Yeah, no, I think there was definitely an imagery there that I was trying to evoke with choosing a treehouse.

DARKWICCAN: And I mean also, as I touched on a second ago, it’s a place where it’s easier to share secrets right? I mean if you go out to the garden shed it’s harder to hear your parental figure walking up on you because they just have to walk up to the door and open it, whereas with a tree house there’s some gymnastics involved to get from the ground to the treehouse so there is that buffer zone of protection. Like, I know my secrets will be safe here in this space with you because we can’t necessarily be overheard. And there is absolutely a romantic quality as well to the treehouse. Was there any particular reason why you opted to, other than the Maidenstar-wants-a-treehouse thought process, because initially you set up Waverly’s safe space being this kind of area that’s a pond that’s a horse ride away from the main ranch or property, why you shifted Nicole and Waverly’s special place from there to the treehouse?

MAIDENSTAR: Yeah, so kind of a couple of things. I think the clearing that I had initially, that's one aspect that’s based on the book. There’s a clearing in the book that is used for imagery where the Waverly character in the book goes to have some space. And I liked the idea firstly that Nicole, although having been offered a share of that space, hasn’t necessarily encroached on that too too much. Out of a sense of letting Waverly keep that space. But I also liked the juxtaposition between having Waverly initially in the time pre-Nicole having a space that’s very open, I mean it’s a clearing surrounded by trees but it’s the aspect of it being outdoors, it’s out in the open. Whereas Nicole and Waverly’s space becomes the treehouse which is smaller, closer, cosier and more intimate in a way that is almost representing them growing together in a way that it’s warmer, it’s sheltered, it’s almost more protected, which is I think the way that they feel about each other now that they’re finding each other and opening up and having that dynamic. So it was a way to show different parts of their growing relationship and almost different settings and that coming in and meshed together as they themselves become more meshed together.

DARKWICCAN: That’s fantastic.

DELAYNE: That’s beautiful, that’s so sweet.

DARKWICCAN: Yes. Something you touched on earlier were the heart to hearts that Nicole and Curtis have, the one-on-one sessions that are therapy in disguise. How did you navigate avoiding having Curtis come off a little too self help book-y.

MAIDENSTAR: Yeah, so i obviously mentioned that a little bit before when i mentioned that i didn’t want him to sound too much like the character he’s slightly, I wouldn’t say he’s based on, I would say he’s entering the same role in the narrative as the character in the book. And it’s a really interesting question because that was precisely what I wanted to avoid and then despite saying that I don’t really recall any specific thought processes I actually went through to achieve that goal. I think Curtis is such an interesting character for the fandom anyway because we’ve quite literally never met him but I thought almost everyone in the fandom feels one hundred percent Curtis has always been on our screens in the show because I think there’s been such a strong connection to Curtis in fanfiction and fan discussions and I think that there’s an energy that we all collectively feel he has despite the fact that we don’t really know that that much about him in comparison with other characters from the show. So I think there was already such a collective sense of what he was like almost built up as I was writing that it was almost actually quite easy having him not come off too much like he’s some sort of templated self help kind of guidance. And I think it was all about as well remembering he’s already in a way done this with Waverly and Wynonna as well. And having him already had that experience of stepping into that role it just was easy to almost give him the vibe of somebody who has acquired a lot of wisdom in his life without ever needing that to be almost cookie cutter self help advice.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, and you’re absolutely right to point to the experience with Wynonna and Waverly and also the unseen children that he and Gus looked after prior to Nicole’s arrival.

MAIDENSTAR: Yeah, I also think honestly, even though i’ve spent so much time writing this fanfiction it’s a valid point that I had even when I was reading the book that it is, or maybe it’s a thing that happens that doesn’t happen in the UK, but it’s not something I’m particularly familiar with as a policy actually happening, where young people get randomly moved across a country for those kinds of reasons. But basing it off the source material there that I had with the book, so obviously wanting to give that almost a bit more of a legitimate air by showing the McCready’s have got experience of working with different kids, and using the aspect of the environment that they’re in is a place for Nicole and other people to go to almost kind of breathe for the first time. To have all of that combined. And I think having the method that Curtis and Gus choose is to be more of a quiet and persistent support than actively doing anything. I think that was the road I wanted to go down from the start.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, and again, like you I don’t have any true knowledge of the juvenile justice system here in the United States, despite living here. But I fortunately never had to deal with it, as a youth or an adult. So I do know that kids will be taken out of negligent homes and fostered but typically that foster happens within the same city that the parents are in. I'm sure it must happen that in some cases they can be shipped off for their own safety or own good to a place further afield…. 

DELAYNE: I think when that happens it tends to be within their extended family.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, yeah.

DELAYNE: ... is really the only time.

DARKWICCAN: Again I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. Probably just exceptionally rare and at least here there would have to be some sort of, like in the original novel, some sort of licenced program that they’re being shipped off to.

MAIDENSTAR: Yeah, and I think in the novel the main angle was just it was a friend of the judge is the angle they play off in the book a lot, saying the judge was friends with the sort of Curtis figure in the book. Which in itself seems a slightly sketchy reason to send a young person half way across the usa in the case of the book. So perhaps my understanding of that system is woefully lacking if that’s a real thing, I'm not too sure myself. 

DARKWICCAN: I mean hey, suspension of disbelief, I have enjoyed it so i don’t really, it’s like, who cares.

MAIDENSTAR: You know, it’s a fanfiction, people have, I assume a lot of readers have come into it to see characters in different situations and I think a lot of the AU settings require a lot of suspension of disbelief. And I mean hey the last time I was here talking to you guys there was a cursed mummy and an Egyptian adventure and I think possibly that might have called for slightly more of a suspension of disbelief and that’s okay.

DARKWICCAN: Only slightly though. Only slightly. [laughs] Yes, you’re absolutely right. The great thing about fanfiction is taking these characters and throwing them into wildly different situations and that’s why it’s called fiction not fact right?

MAIDENSTAR: Fanfact would be a different pod.

DELAYNE: [laughs] that would be a whole different podcast. Because everyone would be arguing about what they could expect.

DARKWICCAN: Yes. [laughs] Oh man, isn’t it funny that we can argue about fact but when it comes to fiction we’re like, “oh yeah okay that’s fine.”

DELAYNE: Exactly. [laughs]

MAIDENSTAR: Accepted on face value.

DARKWICCAN: As long as we’re being true to the character then whatever. Oh man, well Maidenstar this has been wonderful chatting with you again.

MAIDENSTAR: It’s been great, thank you again for having me.

DARKWICCAN: Thank you for joining us. Now normally at this time we’d ask you for a prompt, obviously the desert island option is long gone at this point, so i don’t really have anything to ask of you this time around. I will just ask that you stay healthy, be well, and that things continue to trend toward the positive for you.

MAIDENSTAR: Yes, and same to you both, stay safe and take care.

  
  
  


And that's all for this episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Thanks for joining us.

Tremendous thanks to Maidenstar for joining us once again to chat about their work!

  
  


Thanks also to our announcer Byron Tidwell for our intro 

Background music for the episode was:

A Proper Story by Darren Korb

Summer (Tropicala) BY Erik barone

Big Bad World One by Jonathan Coulton

and the outro music is Don't Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Madigan

  
  


If you have questions or comments for the podcast you can find us on Twitter at E-F-A underscore Podcast and on Facebook at E-F-A Podcast. 

And you can find all of our episodes, old and new, at our website E-F-A Podcast dot com.

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Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you'll join us again next time for another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Until then, READ MORE FIC!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Episodes post Mondays at 8am PST
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> 
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	6. Over a Barrel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This week DW and Laragh pull on their boots, dust off their Stetsons and shine their extra large belt buckles as they settle in to discuss a rootin’ tootin’ rodeo AU! Then they lasso Okie author badartndadjokes in to chat about his story.

[Click HERE to Listen!](http://efapodcast.com/over-a-barrel)

Read the fic!

[(my buckle makes impressions) on the inside of your thigh](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22133590) by badartndadjokes

Episode artwork by Chantal Zeegers 

Liam’s Desert Island fic selection is: [you are a runner (and I am my father’s son)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22580443) by harakiridaddy

Transcript by ACalmHope28

EFA EP406 SEG1

[ph] - Indicates preceding word has been spelled phonetically

[sic] - Indicates preceding word has been transcribed verbatim

DARKWICCAN : Thanks announcer guy and welcome everybody to another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. The podcast dedicated entirely to “Wynonna Earp” fanfiction. I am your host, DarkWiccan, and with me is my rootin’ tootin’ co-host.

LARAGH : Hey, it’s Laragh.

DARKWICCAN : It’s Laragh!

LARAGH : Yay!

DARKWICCAN : Hey Laragh, 

LARAGH : Yes, DW?

DARKWICCAN : How are ya?

LARAGH : I’m ok. I’m… I’m… I’m surviving. How are you?

DARKWICCAN : You’re surviving? Yeah…

LARAGH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : I’m also surviving. 

LARAGH : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : I’m also surviving. Yeah. I’m curious, um, does Ireland have any sort of, like, um, cowboy culture?

LARAGH : There’s a really popular, like, country western dance music scene, um...

DARKWICCAN : I can believe that.

LARAGH : And like jiving and stuff - that kind of thing. Um, but that’s probably… 

DARKWICCAN : Jiving?

LARAGH : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : What’s jiving?

LARAGH : It’s like dancing. It’s like… it’s like... It’s like line-dancing kind of, I think.

DARKWICCAN : Oh ok. Ok.

LARAGH : Yeah. Like country western style dancing and stuff.

DARKWICCAN : That’s cool.

LARAGH : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Well, I mean, um, there’s a couple of reasons why I ask, one of course is the topic of today’s episode, but the other reason is because, uh, a lot of country music, in fact the root of country music, is Irish music.

LARAGH : Right.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, Irish folk music, so, so that’s why I was curious if it kind of circled all the way back around.

LARAGH : Oh definitely, definitely, the music, definitely. Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. The rest of it, not so much.

LARAGH : No, I mean I’ve never heard of a rodeo or anything like that happening, um...

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

LARAGH : But maybe people go up to their farms, and just, like, wield cows with ropes. I don’t know what people get up to on the weekend.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] [Irish accent] Listen, what a man gets up to on his farms is his own business.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : There aren’t, like… So here in, here in the States, we have this saying, you know, or we’ll, we’ll state, state the name of, of a country western state and then follow it up with, um, “where the men are men and the sheep are scared.”

LARAGH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Do you have any regions in Ireland like that?

LARAGH : Uh, hoo [ph], I’m sure we do. Um….

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Luckily you’ve avoided them all so far. [Laughs]

LARAGH : Well, I probably live, like, right bang smack in the middle of, of, of all of that. Um...

DARKWICCAN : Oh ok.

LARAGH : But I’ve, I, I have tended to avoid persons of that nature.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

LARAGH : We don’t really get each other. Me and the….

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. Yeah. I can, I can see that. I can see that. The, the, the thing of here… [Stutters] Cowboy culture is kind of a huge part of at least the middle of the country.

LARAGH : Mmmhmm

DARKWICCAN : Here in the U.S. and so it’s kind of impossible to miss it. You’re… No matter where you live except maybe New York City and, like, L.A. and Chicago. Like, sorry, “L.A.”

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Sorry, call out to “Letter Kenny” there. “L.A.” In “L.A.” you don’t really have the cowboy culture. Um, but, uh, like major cities tend to avoid it except for of course Houston and Dallas.

LARAGH : Mhhhmhh

DARKWICCAN : Um, but, uh, but really, like, anywhere you live in the United States if there’s an element of agriculture, um, which is pretty much all over the place, there’s going to be some, some piece of cowboy country. Maybe not in it’s full, all, you know, chapped glory [Laughs] but, uh, chapped and hat glory, but, like, uh, ya know, at least just enough. Like the boots, the boots and the jeans.

LARAGH : Mmmhmm the boots and the jeans, yeah

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, the, uh, the shirts that are, like, short sleeve button up shirts but they have the bib on them, ya know?

LARAGH : Yeah for sure.

DARKWICCAN : Um, the collar… Yeah, yeah, yeah, so just enough. You just get a flavor of it, um...

LARAGH : I think that’s probably what we have. The flavor, the just enough. Um, um, but it’s centered around specific, like, music artists and, and, you know, I don’t know, five really popular country singers. Um, that, that have, like, the same… It’s kind of like us going to, um, like, conventions, ya know?

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. Yeah.

LARAGH : We’re all kind of going for the same people. [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Right, yeah, exactly, exactly.

LARAGH : You know, or, or, for us it’s WayHaught, or, or Emily, or whatever, um… I should say Kat and Dom, not WayHaught, but you know what I mean. Um…

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. I’m… Yeah.

LARAGH : So it’s kind of like that. You know, it’s, it’s a small cohort of people, but they’re very ardent and, um, enjoy their scene. Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] Excellent.

LARAGH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : Well, good. Uh, I’m glad, I’m glad to hear that there are some Irish cowboys out there who are enjoying their jives.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : So, why are we talking about cowboys? Well, my friends, uh, the story that we are reading today, or not reading, we read it and are going to discuss, is called “my buckle makes impressions (on the inside of her thigh)” by badartndadjokes and I really like that author’s pseud. [Laughs]

LARAGH : Yes

DARKWICCAN : That’s a great pseudonym. Um, but, uh, so, this is a what if, um, what if Purgatory was a little more YeeHaw than what we see on the show, uh…

LARAGH : Set in Oklahoma. [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : What if… [Laughs]   
  


DARKWICCAN : Set in… It’s set in Oklahoma. [sings] Ooooooooklahoma! Yeah, uh, it’s like a law here if… You have to in The United States, if someone mentions the, the O... You know, Oklahoma, the state, you immediately have to break into song for at least the name of the state. 

BOTH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Um, it’s an unwritten law, but it is a law nonetheless, so I follow the law. Uh, uh, so yes, you’re right the story does take place… It, it’s a what-if Purgatory was in Oklahoma, uh, which is right dead in the middle of, kind of, um, cowboy, uh, country in the U.S., uh, and, uh, I’ve actually lived in Oklahoma. I lived in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. I lived in Tulsa Oklahoma. My dad, when I was very very small, uh, performed as Will Rogers in the, uh, production of “Will Rogers at Home” produced at the Will Rogers memorial museum in Claremore, Oklahoma where Will Rodgers is from. And if, if you’re not familiar with Will Rogers, oh, very, very, very young listeners, uh… 

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Um, uh, Will Rogers was a very famous American, uh, cowboy comedian. Uh, or humorist, I should say. Uh, and, um, super duper liberal guy that has nothing to do with the story we’re talking about. Um, but I urge you, I strongly encourage you to look up Will Rogers. ‘Cause most people think cowboys equal conservatives. That's not true with our buddy, Will. Um, he was amazing. Ok! So anyway! Uh, so yeah, Oklahoma is very much, um, in the middle of, of that kind of, uh, world. And, so this is a what if Purgatory was in Oklahoma. What if Nicole grew up with the group. Uh, and, and what if some of the friendship dynamics were a little bit different, um, as well. And, of course, what if Nicole was a rodeo cowboy. Girl. Cow person.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, cowboy! Fuck it!

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Uh, so what were your first impressions of the story, Laragh?

LARAGH : I, well, my first impression was that the summary was very enticing, shall we say? [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yes, very enticing!

BOTH : [Laugh]

LARAGH : If you like that kind of thing.

DARKWICCAN : Uh-huh. [sexy “rawr” noise]

LARAGH : Yeah I was interested that it… It just, it did a few things differently than I have seen in fics before, in that it, it put Purgatory in a, in a whole different area of the world. Um, and it had Nicole grow up with everyone except the Earps. In this case the Earps moved away. Um… 

DARKWICCAN : Yes

LARAGH : So, Nicole didn’t meet the Earps until she was fifteen, but she was friends with everyone else. I think eight. Um, and yeah, I just, I like that we got to see those dynamics. I… You know me, I’m not the biggest Champ fan. [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Mmmhmm

LARAGH : To put it mildly, but, um, I thought it was interesting to see how they explained, uh, that friendship. ‘Cause there is a, there is a friendship that… In their younger years, there’s friendship between Nicole and between James as he is known, uh, as a youngster, uh, before he becomes quote unquote Champ. Um… 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah

LARAGH : And yeah, I thought that was interesting. I thought it was, uh, I thought it was just a new dynamic to work with that actually I believed. Because in almost any other scenario, if you put Champ and Nicole together, the only way I’m gonna believe it is if Nicole’s punching him in the face, you know?

DARKWICCAN : Yeah.

BOTH : [Laugh]

LARAGH : Um, So yeah...

DARKWICCAN : Fair.

LARAGH : [Laughs] I, I uh, I enjoyed that. I really liked that. And I liked that, um, I liked that, uh, yeah, Nicole just being an established part of Purgatory before the Earps came back.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, that was really unique because it was like the Earps were the sort of, um, known entity despite the fact that they had left. 

LARAGH : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : And, so, they’re, uh, they had left behind essentially their shadow. Essentially. And, um, apparently “essentially” is my favorite word today. And [Laughs] And, so Nicole knew of the Earps but hadn’t, ya know, met any of them ‘til they returned.

LARAGH : She didn’t. I don’t think she knew even the whole story… 

DARKWICCAN : No.

LARAGH : Because she was kind of shocked by Wynonna, shall we say. Um… 

DARKWICCAN : Yes.

LARAGH : But [Laughs] when Wynonna returned, like, she, I think she knew, yeah, the Earps had left, but the town didn’t speak of it, I suppose. [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean just like from the show, ya know, Wynonna was the pariah, right?

LARAGH : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. And, um, so when, uh, when she comes back into town, she is ready, you know? She’s, she’s got her Wyn... She’s going all Wynonna again, basically.

BOTH : [Laugh]

LARAGH : I mean, I mean she’s fifteen, I think she’s the same age as Nicole, um, uh, or so in this, in this fic at that point. So, not only is she Wynonna, she’s, like, teenage hormonal Wynonna, so…

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. And Waverly is also, uh, Waverly is also a rodeo, um, competitor. Um, why is my brain blanking on whether or not Wynonna competes?

LARAGH : No, I don’t think Wynonna competes.

DARKWICCAN : She doesn’t compete. That’s why I was like, “Wait a minute.” ‘Cause I was, like, trying to remember, like, “What does she do?” Nothing.

LARAGH : She gets mad [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : She’s, she gets mad.

LARAGH : She gets surly.

DARKWICCAN : She’s rebellious.

LARAGH : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : She is Wynonna.

LARAGH : She’s Wynonna.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. But, so, like, so, Nicole and Champ, they compete as… in steer roping.

LARAGH : Mmmhmm

DARKWICCAN : And, uh, and Waverly is barrel racing? She does barrel racing? Yeah, that’s right.

LARAGH : Yeah. Yeah. 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah yeah. Waverly does barrel racing. Um, and, which is typically, I guess, what, um, individuals who are identified as female, uh, typically will go into in the rodeo, rodeo is barrel racing, and, um, something called pole bending. Which I don’t know what that is. [Laughs]

LARAGH : That sounds enticing, too.

DARKWICCAN : No clue. 

LARAH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, I have, I have not a freaking clue what that is. So maybe we can ask badartndadjokes later. Um, so, uh, so they both are… The thing that they have in common despite not being in the same town at the time that they’re doing this is that, uh, they’re both - Nicole and Waverly start rodeoing at an incredibly young age. Like, Nicole’s eight when she starts to… when she ropes for her first year, I guess [Laughs]. Her first teeny-weenie little steer. Uh, which I guess would be a calf rope. They’d be calf roping, not steer roping at that age [Laughs] ‘Cause you’re not gonna saddle a little...

LARAGH : You’re already using terms and I’m like, “what?” [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Ok so a steer is an adult cow.

LARAGH : Ok. Ok.

DARKWICCAN : Male. I wanna say a male cow.

LARAGH : This makes the story make a little bit more sense. I probably should have looked it up, but I was just, I was just going along with it. I was like, “Sure. Steer racing, sure.”

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. And, and you know what a calf is relative to an adult cow, right? 

BOTH : [Laugh]

LARAGH : No. I have no idea, what is a calf?

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] [southern accent] Well, it’s a baby cow, is what it is.

LARAGH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : [Southern accent] It’s a baby cow! [Laughs] [Normal voice] So, yeah, I just can’t imagine, I just can’t imagine a little eight year old on a, on a, on their little horse, like, young horse, uh, probably on a pony, uh, you know, with a, with their little rope. [Laughs]

LARAGH : Ohh, I feel bad for the calf now.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] Oh did you just look up, uh, calf roping?

LARAGH : Yeah

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, and they say that it doesn’t hurt the cow or the calf, you know, ‘cause it’s… But they can’t be comfortable.

LARAGH : No! Well, I mean, I wouldn’t enjoy it. Some people might.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, well, you’re not into bondage though.

LARAGH : Yeah, no. Definitely no.

DARKWICCAN : I’m not either.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Let’s be honest.

LARAGH : Rope burns. No thank you.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Uh, but, uh, anyway! Uh, so, [Laughs] but yeah, she… The interesting thing is she, uh, Nicole and Champ start off as, uh, partners, uh, steer roping partners, or calf roping, i guess. Because you have to have a partner in calf roping. 

LARAGH : Ok. And I think Nicole… 

DARKWICCAN : I think?

LARAGH : ...Thinks that James, as he is at that point, um, is the only one who’s anywhere near good enough to do it with her.

DARKWICCAN : Was it that or was it that they were paired together by somebody else? I don’t remember. That was at the beginning of the story.

LARAGH : I think they were paired together, but I, they were paired together, I think, but she also came to see him as the only one who was any way, um… 

DARKWICCAN : Oh yeah. 

[Long pause]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. [Laughs] Sorry, folks, I’m trying to remember the first chapter and it’s, it’s, ‘cause it’s been a minute since I, I honestly, since I read the first chapter, I’ll be honest with you. Uh, so, but I, yeah, I do know that they, they initially were partners and then, was it Waverly that came between them? Or did they just naturally, um, grow apart from each other as Champ got older and douchier?

LARAGH : Well, Champ got older and douchier. Um, and yeah, I mean it was basically Champ got older and juc… “jucier”? No. Douchier. 

DARKWICCAN : Oh no! No! No.

LARAGH : [Laughs] Definitely not that other one. Um. Champ did go on a date with Waverly, but we didn’t see really much of any of Nicole being in too big of a, ya know, conniption about that. Um, she was just… wanted Waverly to be happy. Um, but Waverly learned a very good life lesson early and that was: do not date Champ. The life lesson everyone should learn. Um… 

DARKWICCAN : Yes.

LARAGH : And she, she pretty much dumped him on the first date. And after that there was a ruckus at a party, um, and Nicole officially, uh, severed all allegiance with Champ at that point.

DARKWICCAN : Yes. And of course Nicole and Waverly start dating.

LARAGH : Yes, of course! And very, like, very, very quickly start dating, you know, like, it’s, it’s as, as, sapphic inclined women do. It was very intense very quickly. Um… 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. 

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : And as you yourself have said, Laragh, uh, Nicole and Waverly - they be thirsty. So...

LARAGH : They be thirsty. They do be thirsty.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, yeah.

LARAGH : Extremely.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Uh, so really the story is largely, um, it’s basically Waverly and Nicole with, like, peripheral rodeo stuff happening.

LARAGH : Mmmhmm, yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, and, like, the rivalry - the rodeo rivalry - that ultimately occurs between Nicole and, and Champ.

LARAGH : Yup. Along with some good old fashioned sassy, southern, smut.

DARKWICCAN : Yes.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Yes. If you like that sort of thing.

LARAGH : If you like that sort of thing.

DARKWICCAN : Uh. Mmmhmmm… [Laughs] Uh, so, yeah, it’s interesting in that the, um, the little summary entic… enticement excerpt - it’s not really a summary, it’s just an excerpt to entice you to read and it really works.

LARAGH : Mhhmmm

DARKWICCAN : Uh, just so y'all know, that excerpt doesn’t appear until the next chapter.

LARAGH : Right. Yes.

DARKWICCAN : So you do have to get through Chapter 1 in its entirety before you get to that excerpt in Chapter 2 which then becomes the full scene. Um, but, yeah, I don’t, ya know, it’s just, it’s a really well written little story. Uh, it’s three out of four chapters so far with a fourth yet to be posted, so it’ll, you know, it’s gonna be wrapped up fairly soon. Um, I, you know, I love, I love, badartndadjokes’ author’s voice here. It’s, it’s very confident. It, it seems obvious to me that they know what they’re talking about when, in talking about the sport of rodeo.

LARAGH : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : Um, could be they’ve just done some really intensive extensive research.

LARAGH : In which case, kudos, because it’s very, it’s very thorough.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. Yeah. It is very thorough. And it just comes from a voice of knowledge, uh, and I, I also like the way that they’ve handled, um, everyone’s character. I, I don’t have, like, any issue with any of the characterizations at all.

LARAGH : No. Especially because they’re so young. Um…

DARKWICCAN : Mhhmmm

LARAGH : And it’s so perfectly believable that they’re that age. And speaking the way they speak and, um, I mean they’re, they’re, they’re advanced in the, in the area of the smut. But, um… 

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Well, they’re just, they’re adventurous. They’re young and adventurous. They’ve got energy to burn, right?

LARAGH : Sure, let’s, let’s both go with that. Yeah, absolutely. 

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

LARAGH : There are, they are not what I was like at fifteen, but, [Laughs] uh, yeah, no, they’re, they’re good. They’re, they’re, they’re having fun on the field? I don’t know what a, I don’t know what it’s called where they do the steering.

DARKWICCAN : Oh, uh [Laughs] I don’t know!

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : I don’t know what it’s called, the…

LARAGH : Ring?

DARKWICCAN : The, the ring? 

LARAGH : I don’t know.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, the ring. Yeah, I don’t know. [Laughs] Listen, I said I lived in Oklahoma. I didn’t say I was an expert on rodeo. 

LARAGH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : I can just, I can just, I can just attest to the fact that rodeo is a big deal there. [Laughs]

LARAGH : It’s a big deal. Yeah. 

DARKWICCAN : Uh, yeah. [Laughs] Yeah, I don’t know. The, the… Maybe it’s the ring? I don’t know. What it’s called... We could probably do, probably do a quick google search. [Laughs]

LARAGH : I’m, I’m reading the Wikipedia page on rodeo right now to see if… [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Oh that’s hilarious.

LARAGH : To see if I can find it. Ooo [ph], there’s events called tie-down roping. I bet Waverly would be up for that.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] Yes, folks, we sure do, um, make sure to do our research before we start recording.

BOTH : [Laugh]

LARAGH : It’s not telling me what a rodeo circle is called, area...whatever 

[Extended pause]

LARAGH : It should not be taking us this long to figure this out. [Laughs] We’re gonna just have to go… 

DARKWICCAN : It really shouldn’t. It really shouldn’t. Uh, what is the…

LARAGH : I know, why don’t we, why don’t we ask, uh, badartndadjokes when we talk to them what it’s called? [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Ok, that’s a good idea. Yeah. What’s it called? We don’t know! We are not of the knowledge.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Um, but I mean, you know, kinda getting back, back to the story, um, and, and to just talking about, uh, characterization, it’s interesting in that, um, it seems like Waverly and Nicole, there’s a bit of, uh, time jumping that happens. Uh, it, it seems like Waverly and Nicole are, uh, quite deep into their relationship, um, by the time we get to the third, uh, chapter, but I guess, I guess, I’m guessing unless, unless I’m misreading this - you tell me, you reread it most recently - um, that really they had been in a relationship, but they hadn’t, uh, made Wynonna aware in so far as being very blunt about it.

LARAGH : Yes, they hadn’t. They hadn’t been obvious, and as we all know, Wynonna is very oblivious and needs these things to be obvious.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : She needs the information to be handed to her… 

LARAGH : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : ...very very clearly, yeah. 

LARAGH : And, um, and then, yeah, so, so Wynonna eventually finds out about them and, uh, doesn’t react well, but considering it’s Wynonna, she doesn’t react horribly, either. 

DARKWICCAN : Right, yeah, she doesn’t go into supreme protect my baby sister meltdown.

LARAGH : Right, she doesn’t break Nicole’s wrists or anything like that. Um, you know.

DARKWICCAN : No. She could.

LARAGH : She could. She probably would have to Champ.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. Yeah. But we do get a nice reclamation of the, uh, sequence from, um, the show of the whole “she’s my…”

LARAGH : “Kind of”

DARKWICCAN : “Girlfriend. Kind of. Kind of?” [laughs]

LARAGH : “Kind of?” I loved that exchange. I, I, I really really liked that exchange. You know that I’m a big fan of using lines in AUs from the fan…. From the shows in fanfic if you can. And I just thought this one was so excellently planted. It was, like, right where it should have gone. It had the same, um, you know, timing and everything of the show. And, uh, it just, uh, yeah. It was, it was, it, it, it added to it, as well. It gave some, like, additional commentary around the exchange which I felt was great.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. Yeah. And I also thought it was interesting how Nicole reacted when Waverly came to talk to her about it afterwards. It wasn’t really what I expected.

LARAGH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : Um, and that I think is a good thing. I always enjoy being surprised. I mean, that definitely is within Nicole’s character, uh, but I, as you touched on earlier, they’re young. They’re teenagers in this story and, so, it’s, um, right? Yeah. They’re teens.

LARAGH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : And so it’s just, uh, uh, I think in line with her emotional maturity.

LARAGH : Yes. Yes, absolutely.

DARKWICCAN : So, that, uh, yeah. 

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : So, so, yeah, um, I am, I am, I’m very interested to chat with badartndadjokes about the story, you know, not only because I’ve got so many questions about what the heck is the center area in rodeo called

LARAGH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Um, but also just, uh, I really wanna get their thought process on how they came up with the relationships and the history for the characters and, and what inspired them to do this story, so, uh, so why don’t we stop jibber-jabbering [ph] and, uh, get onto our, our next segment with, uh, with the author badartndadjokes?

LARAGH : Can’t wait.

DARKWICCAN : Fantastic. But of course before we do that, we must  [CONTENT CENSORED PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT] 

MUSIC: Feathered Indians by Tyler Childers

DARKWICCAN : And welcome back, everybody, to The Earp Fiction Addiction - the podcast dedicated entirely to “Wynonna Earp” fanfiction. My name is Darkwiccan and with me is my wonderful co-host.

LARAGH : Hey, it’s Laragh.

DARKWICCAN : Hey, Larah, you wanna hear something funny?

LARAGH : Always.

DARKWICCAN : I almost forgot what we were doing for a second.

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : I seriously did because I thought I heard something in the background here and I got distracted and I’m like “Hey welcome back to, what are…? Who are we? What do we want? What’s happening?” It’s ok. I’m good now. I’m good now. And that’s a good thing because we have with us the author of the terrific story “my buckle makes impressions (on the inside of her thigh)” badartndadjokes, who we are calling Liam today. Liam, welcome to the show!

LIAM : Howdy.

DARKWICCAN : Howdy! That is an appropriate, uh, greeting for this story.

LIAM : Thank you, I just thought of it.

DARKWICCAN : You just thought… ok. Nice. Nice. Excellent. So Liam, this is your first time on the podcast, but you actually have joined us before via EFA fic live.

LIAM : Yes, I have. That was a good time. I loved that.

DARKWICCAN : That was a good time. Thank you so much for volunteering to do that. Um, it’s been a joy, uh, listening to authors read their works. It is just, only authors, um, I’m not saying not… [mumbles] Let me rephrase that. Not only authors can read their works, that’s stupid, cuz there wouldn’t be voice actors reading audio books, including myself [laughs], but there’s something about when an author reads their own work that is unmatched when an actor takes it on because the author knows where the breaths are, right? I mean, you know… 

LIAM : Yeah

DARKWICCAN : ...the tone that you were thinking in your head when you were writing out a phrase.

LIAM : Yeah exactly.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. So, could I entice you to come back for a future, uh, fic live?

LIAM : Yeah! I would love that. It was really fun, It was, like, nerve wracking cause I was the first one, but… 

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] But you did fine.

LIAM : And I had never done, like, any recording of anything before, much less reading something that I’ve read out loud, or that I've written out loud and it was terrifying for the first forty-five seconds and then I was like, “Oh this is fine.” 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah [laughs].

LIAM : And it was, like, fun and I could see the chat and everyone was like, “You’re doing so good.” And I was like, “Ok, cool. I’m doing good.”

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. [Laughs] That is a really nice thing about the fic live. We’ve done three of them so far and, uh, it’s really great how supportive everybody is. 

LIAM : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : And that’s something that I think is just wonderful about this fandom in general, but also the fic fandom within the “Wynonna Earp” fandom.

LIAM : Yeah

DARKWICCAN : Is also very very supportive. Everyone just wants you to succeed and it’s great.

LIAM : Yeah, that was super nice. Everyone… even, like, after everyone was done, every single time an author was done, everyone was like, “Yay! You did so good! Thank you so much!” It was, like, that was really nice for everyone to be able to see that.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, it was. It was super super nice and just you know what we need right now I think. Especially with everything going on in the world at large.

LIAM : Yeah

DARKWICCAN : Uh, So speaking of the world at large, how are you faring these days?

LIAM : I’m doing great. I’m working from home, so I get to just sit in my house and have my cat terrorize me the whole time. 

DARKWICCAN: Nice

LIAM : Um, and do pretty much nothing else. I get to multi-task. I’ve done a lot of drawing while we’ve been doing this whole Quarantine thing, so that’s fun.

DARKWICCAN : Oh, very nice! Yeah, I’ve seen your, uh, stuff. I think, haven’t you been posting some fan art on twitter?

LIAM : Yeah, I do that a lot more consistently than I do writing ‘cause that’s much easier to pump out faster.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, you know what? There’s this, uh, joke about, um, fan artists vs. fan authors and, um, how with like, uh, fan artists you can, you know, they can go, and you can include yourself in this, “I’ve got this image of a scene in my head” and you just sit down and it might take a few hours, but, you know, you draw it out and you can just hold it up and go “look this is the scene.”

LIAM : Yeah

DARKWICCAN : vs. an author you have to, like, “I’ve got this scene in my head” [Laughs] sit down and then you’re grinding it out with the words trying to, like, go “Ok now how do I describe it? Like, how do I get this description right? You know, I’ve got, ok so, her, she’s standing, but she’s kind of got a hip pop, but no, not in… ok it goes right hip.” And, um, it takes… it takes a while! [Laughs]

LIAM : Yes. Like, how do I describe it in a way that’s, like, not similar to like, you know, like “My Immortal,” where it’s like, “She was standing there with her raven hair and her long eyelashes.”

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : It’s like, “Aw [ph] screw it, I’m just gonna draw it!” [Laughs]

LIAM : Yes. That’s what I do a lot. If I have like a… I get a lot of stuff from, like, songs and stuff cause I’m a nerd, um, and I’m like, “Well, I could write that and that would take like 7 days, but I could draw this in like 30 minutes, so… That seems more likely to happen.”

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, yeah. Exactly [Laughs]. And it’s also an interesting quirk that, uh, fan art can be shared openly within the fandom as far as it’s ok, in fact it’s encouraged, that you want the, um, uh, subject of your art, in this case, you know whether it’s, uh, Kat Barrell or Dominique or Tim, you know, you want them to see your work and comment on it and maybe hopefully fingers crossed use it as their twitter icon or something!

LIAM : Yeah

DARKWICCAN : Um, whereas with fanfiction, it’s like, you’re doing everything you can to keep it away [Laughs] from the cast. 

LARAGH: Worst nightmare.

LIAM : Someone tweeted some chapter that I did to the whole cast and then they got blocked by Emily, and I felt so bad and I was like, “I have nothing to do with it, I promise. Like, that really wasn’t me.”

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, oh man, that’s so rough. It’s a thing where you just constantly have to… have to be on top of. Of reminding folks, like, you know...

LIAM : Don’t do that. It’s illegal.

DARKWICCAN : Like, yeah, like it’s not like breaking the law illegal, but it’s, it’s a contractual issue where they… 

LIAM : That kind of illegal.

DARKWICCAN : They… Yeah, that kind of illegal, yeah. It’s like they, they, they can’t risk being influenced by outside, uh, you know, uh, authors and it’s completely understandable. I mean it’s, and it’s one of those things where at least Emily is really supportive of the fact that fanfic is a thing.

LARAGH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : You know, ‘cause there’s some...

LIAM : I feel like she’s used to it now, though.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, yeah. But there are some creatives out there who are like, “Don’t touch my stuff.”

LIAM : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] You know, uh, whereas she’s very much like “No! Go for it! Just don’t show it to me!’” [Laughs]

LIAM : “I highly encourage you doing it, but I do not want to know that it’s happening. I don’t want to see it.”

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, so yeah, instead we’re kinda just in a position where you get that sort of, um, what’s the word I’m looking for? Not “satisfaction,” but, uh, I’ll go “satisfaction” for now. Being able to share, you know, drawn art, uh, with, with the world and the cast and, but, you can’t, you don’t get that same satisfaction with written art, so.

LIAM : It’s definitely, what is it? That immediate dose of, like, dopamine. Is that what it is?

DARKWICCAN : Exactly

LIAM : Is that the happiness one?

DARKWICCAN : That is the happiness one.

LIAM : Where you’re like, “Oh! People like this and they looked at this.”

Exactly. Exactly. Whereas with fi... with writing, you know, when you’ve written something, you, first of all it’s like, “Here’s my baby, please don’t hurt it.” And then, um, and then the person reading it has to invest themselves and the time to read it. 

LARAGH : Yeah

DARKWICCAN : Whereas an image, you just look at it and go, “Oh! That’s great! That’s awesome! Nice job! Good line work!’ Whereas [Laughs] with writing it’s like, “Oh, I gotta sit down and read these twenty pages. That’s an effort.” [laughs] I mean it’s great...

LIAM : I do more art ‘cause it’s so much easier for people, like, “Oh, cool. I like that.” They like it, they retweet it, that’s the end. With writing it’s like, you’re like, “Hey, have you thought that maybe that this was wrong?” And I'm like, “Mmmm… [ph] no. I didn’t. But thank you for reminding me that it was wrong.”

DARKWICCAN : Oh, man

LIAM : And then it’s done. 

DARKWICCAN : [groans] Yeah. It’s like, “Uh! Jeez! Ok!” [Laughs] Um, but, but sometimes you just gotta write. What it is about…

LIAM : Yeah

DARKWICCAN : When is… what’s it like for you when you sit down and you have an idea and you’re like, ‘I must write this. I can’t draw this. This has to be communicated in the written word?”

LIAM : I think that’s one of the reasons I wrote “Buckle…” because it’s just what I call it ‘cause that’s a long title. I don’t know why I did that to myself.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

LIAM : Um, because one of the first things that I ever drew, when I… ‘cause I made my Twitter because all of my friends and family were tired of seeing me retweet my “Wynonna” stuff on my real Twitter, so I made one and I... The badartndadjokes, I got it from this online username generator which no one ever believes me when I say that, but I just hit generate and it came up with badartndadjokes, and I was like, “I need you guys to know guys to know that’s me. That’s literally my name.”

DARKWICCAN AND LARAGH : [Laugh]

LIAM : And so I made it and I was like, “Ok, so I’m liking stuff.” and I was like, “Well, I draw, so I could probably do that.” And then I drew Nicole with, like, typical rodeo wear on, like, a shirt with, like, cactus rope and wrangler stuff on it and I was like, “Oh, this would be fun to, like, write down.” ‘Cause I feel like you don’t see a lot of stuff like that. Like in fiction. It’s like, it’s more like, just, like, random AUs, but, like, who writes a cowboy AU? Only me, apparently. 

DARKWICCAN : A lot of people, but, you know… [Laughs]

LIAM : ‘Cause I’ve never seen anything like it and then I started seeing stuff and I was like, “Oh, that’s really cool,” but I was like, “This is something that I’ve known my whole life, is like rodeo stuff, so I might as well just write it down and, like, relate it to someone else.”

DARKWICCAN : Nice. So, steering toward the story a bit now, um, so, Oklahoma... You, you, you took Purgatory and you plopped it into Oklahoma. That’s an interesting choice. What, what inspired that decision?

LIAM : This sounds kinda dumb, but the only reason that it’s in Oklahoma is ‘cause I live in Oklahoma and I didn’t want to have to google locations [Laughs] So I knew everything...

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

LIAM : ...about Oklahoma and rodeos in Oklahoma and I was like, “Ope [ph], that’s not any information that I have to look up. That's the… that’s the one!”

DARKWICCAN : Ok, ok, so, so, you don’t have to answer this if you, if you want to keep your location a bit more not… you know, like vague, but I, um, I also lived in Oklahoma.

LIAM : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : And I lived in the, in both Tulsa at one point and then Broken Arrow, Oklahoma for a while. Uh, so, would you say that near-ish to those areas, or...?

LIAM : No, I’m, I’m, like, right around Oklahoma City. I just moved back to, like, my hometown, but, um, I lived in Oklahoma City for a while, I’d say it’s within like 3 seconds from it. Um...

DARKWICCAN : Oh ok.

LIAM : You can see, like, the Devon Tower and everything like that from like my house.

DARKWICCAN : Oh gotcha. 

LIAM : So like… 

DARKWICCAN : Ok ok

LIAM : So, you know, right around it. But, I mean, like, all of the settings in my story, like Guthrie and Arcadia, I grew up over there. So, like, I just didn’t have to look anything up, it was like, “Oh, I know what that is!”

DARKWICCAN : Nice.

LIAM : I know all the rodeo ran through there.

DARKWICCAN : Nice [Laughs]

LIAM : Which is probably the lamest answer, too. Like, “Oh,I just live there. I like it.”

DARKWICCAN : No that’s not… That’s not a lame answer at all! 

LARAGH : No.

DARKWICCAN : I completely get it! I totally get it. When I have, um, uh, placed, uh, written stuff in AU and, and, and taken characters and put them in a different location from where they are in a television series, it’s… I generally have placed them where I have lived. And I’ve lived a lot of places fortunately, so, like, I, you know? But yeah. Just because the same exact thing in order to sit down and do research on, on, locale cause I know it. I can do research on other stuff. [laughs]

LIAM : Yeah. That’s… that’s definitely why… I was like, “I really don’t want to google anything. That seems like it would take a lot of time.” And then I would, like, lose the effort of wanting to write anymore. I was like, “Might as well just put it here. No one really bases things in Oklahoma anymore, so might as well.”

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

LARAGH : It’s true. It’s good because you’ve got less chance of getting something wrong, as well.

LIAM : Exactly! That was my whole thing. I didn’t want someone to tell me that I was wrong. And I was like, “No, I know this.”

LARAGH : Yeah. [Laughs] I’m with you there. So, um, speaking of living in Oklahoma and setting it in Oklahoma, is rodeo something you have personal experience with? Because it certainly reads like you do.

LIAM : Yes, me and my brother both did them when we were kids. He did them a lot more than I did, but, um, I still was there all the time for them. So, I, like, have all of that knowledge in my brain forever, I’m sure. I probably will never forget it. [Laughs] So, I just know a lot about all the stuff that they do. Which was a lot easier. Again, I didn’t have to research anything.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] Ok, so

LARAGH : Personal experience is the best.

DARKWICCAN : Yes, yeah. Ok, so, something that Laragh and I completely stumped ourselves on in the previous segment [Laughs] is what the heck is the, the, the field called in the arena where the rodeo-ing [sic] happens?

LIAM : Just like… the area?

DARKWICCAN : The ar… yeah.

LARAGH : The area.

LIAM : Just like the dirt. It’s like the arena. You know, you’re out. You’re in the middle. I don’t know.

DARKWICCAN : Is there, like, a specific name? [Laughs]

LIAM : No. When people that do, like, rodeos, like, talk, they’re very vague to begin with. So they’re just like…

DW AND LARAGH : [Laugh]

LIAM : Oh yeah, out in the stadium. Out in the arena. Stadium and arena, I think is normally - depending on if it’s open or, like, in a building. 

DARKWICCAN : Ok. Ok.

LIAM : Normally if it’s arena, it’s like out, like, cause that’s where a lot of rodeos are. They’re less likely to be inside than they are outside. So, if it’s, like, outside, it’s like, it’s like the stadium. Or no. It’s like the arena. The stadium’s the one inside. So the arena’s just like the metal fences with a bunch of dirt in the middle. Pretty much it.

DARKWICCAN : Gotcha. Gotcha. Ok. Yeah, cause we were like going… we didn’t know what to call it. We’re like, “Ring?”

LARAGH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : “Um, field? Uhhhh… yeah?”

LIAM : Field makes it sound like it has grass.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, I know, exactly. That’s what we were... Like, “Well, what is it…?” Yeah. So, we literally stumped ourselves. We were like, “Oh, we’ll just ask Liam and he’ll know!” [Laughs]

LIAM : I love that. I didn’t ever think that anyone…

DARKWICCAN : That’s hilarious.

LIAM : Would not know what that was, I guess. It’s very, like, close-minded of, like, oh, I know things about this, like, rodeos and stuff, but, like, I feel like I've never referred to it as anything, it’s just like, you know, the dirt. The area. 

DARKWICCAN : It’s just...Yeah, it’s just the rodeo. [Laughs]

LARAGH : Yeah. I like the dirt.

LIAM : The dirt. It’s a lot of dirt. And it’s very, it’s either muddy or it’s, like, uh, clouds of dust. You have no in between. So it either really really hurts when you fall on it, or you just, like, get dust in your mouth. That’s pretty much it.

DARKWICCAN : Cough. [Laughs]

LIAM : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Um, so, so you touched a little bit on this before about how you, um, cowboy Nicole is actually a pretty popular thing, but this is the first time I’ve seen it in, in, in reference to a rodeo. And in like...

LIAM : Mhhmm

DARKWICCAN : ...a contemporary type situation. I mean, we’ve had contemporary, kind of ranch hand Nicole, which sort of skirts the, the idea of cowboy, cowgirl Nicole, um, YeeHaw Nicole as the short hand.

LARAGH : [Laughs]

LIAM : Yes

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] But, but, you’re the first author, I believe, um, catch me getting yelled at on Twitter, but you’re the first author, I believe who has, uh, written her as a contemporary cowboy stroke girl, person, uh, you know in contemporary rodeo. Uh, so what is it about cowboy country [Laughs] that makes Nicole such an easy fit?

LIAM : I don’t know. I think a lot of her mannerisms, like just like being, like, sheriff and you know the stetson always gets people because people actually wear those, um, where I always thought that it made a lot of sense, like she always kind of seemed like she’d be from kind of, like, an area like I was from. Um, and she’s so easy to relate to, as just like a person, that I thought that she could be super capable - and she’s got that kind of cocky attitude that rodeo people always have where they really think that they’re just, you know, they’re doing their best. They’re gonna achieve what they put their mind to. And that’s, like, the end of the story. And I just feel like I just know how to write in that tone of, like, I use those words and I use those terms that it sounded like she would be a really good fit for that.

DARKWICCAN : That makes sense. I think… Do you think there’s an element of sort of this, uh, crossover between, uh, you know, chivalric code and the cowboy and…

LIAM : Yes

DARKWICCAN : And sort of how Nicole presents herself?

LIAM : Yeah. I think that, that a lot of her mannerisms like she’s, she is super confident, but she’s also, like, really ready to help in any way. And I mean anyone that’s ever lived in a small town knows that that’s pretty much what you have to do to live in a small town - is be ready to help if someone needs help. And she’s just so good at that that I feel like she’s just got a really good, like, small town mannerism. 

DARKWICCAN : YeeHaw.

LIAM : Yes. Exactly. Yeehaw.

ALL : [Laugh]

LIAM : That’s how we end every chapter - I just sit at my desk by myself and I go, “Yeah. Yeehaw.”

DARKWICCAN AND LARAGH : [Laugh]

LARAGH : That’s awesome.

DARKWICCAN : I can so picture that!

LIAM : I’m really glad. [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : That’s awesome!

LARAGH : With a little, like, fist pump of victory.

LIAM : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : Yes.

LARAGH : [Laughs]

LIAM : It’s more like a “YeeHaw” where you, like, do like a roping mechanism above your head.

LARAGH : Oh. [Laughs]

LIAM : Like motion. That’s it. Tip your hat a little bit.

LARAGH : Amazing. Yes. I’m gonna just do that every day now.

LIAM : Thank you.

LARAGH : Like, every, every success that I have in life, even if it’s just, like, waking up and getting up at the end I’m like, “YeeHaw.”

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

LIAM : If that’s what you take from this, I’m very happy.

LARAGH : [Laughs] So, um, so you have the quintessential WyNaught - Wynonna and Nicole - friendship happening here. But also in the early part of the fic there’s, um, established Champ/Nicole friendship which I don’t think I’ve actually ever seen. Um, again, all of the Twitter people on me probably have, but I haven’t seen it. Um, so, would you compare one friendship to the other, or do you think they were just born from different… being present at different times in Nicole’s life?

LIAM : I think it’s a little bit of both. Um, with Champ I think a lot of people always see him as just a one dimensional, like, he wasn’t a very good person. But I mean, anyone that, like, exists in real life, there’s never people that are just, like, just bad just to be bad, like for the sake of it. And I’ve definitely known people just like Champ that I grew up with that we were really good friends when we were younger and then, you know, they, they start to get traction, they are popular, something like that, and then they turn into pretty awful people, but they still had, like, a time where they were kids and they were just normal people. And I really think that that’s something all of us can grow up with and so she had to be friends with someone that was gonna be like that before she can actually find, like, friends that are really important to her. Because they are important when you’re a kid, but, like, people are gonna grow. They’re gonna change. And it really is, like, I think it teaches something about anyone can change in, uh, in a matter of seconds or a matter of years, so it’s really a lot of, like, different relationships that are always gonna influence you. And I think she could become a better person because of it. Of, like, having to deal with people like that. Does that make sense?

LARAGH : That makes… I’m sitting here kind of in awe of that answer. Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

LARAGH : That’s awesome insight.

LIAM : If it helps, I thought very little about these answers before I came in because I got really nervous the more I was thinking about it, the more I was like, “I’m gonna sound so stupid,” so a lot of that’s just like, “Yeah, I feel like that’s what I wrote. That sounds right.”

LARAGH : [Laughs]: No, absolutely, that totally tracks.

DARKWICCAN : Talking about character relationships, uh, obviously, this is a WayHaught story, so we’ve got Waverly and Nicole together. Um, they seem to dive into their relationship with each other, uh, relatively quickly. Uh, which, hey, you know what? Sometimes the opposite of a slow-burn is awesome.

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Sometimes you just wanna get to it, right?

LARAGH : Mmmhmm

DARKWICCAN : So to speak. Uh, but, um, much like in canon, uh, Wynonna’s a bit oblivious to the nature of, uh, to the true nature of Waverly and Nicole’s relationship until it’s revealed, um, in Chapter 3. Sorry for the spoilers. Spoiler alert! We did talk about this in the previous segment, but, um, I found it very interesting, the kind of aftermath, and how Waverly went to, uh, Nicole, um, after the whole “Girlfriend. Kind of. Kind of?” conversation.

LARAGH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : And, um, I’m wondering, and I’m speaking not only to the character in your story as you’ve presented her, but also, you thoughts on canon Waverly: Do you think that Waverly maybe uses sex a little bit to avoid difficult conversations?

LIAM : Yes, um, I think about that a lot because I feel like that’s, like, a really, like, defining, like, character trait for her, is that she’s a really good avoider of, like, big conversations. Both, like, in canon and, like, anytime anyone’s ever written her. Uh, that she is very quick to, like, push it away and be like, “Oh, no it’s ok, we can talk about it later” and then distract, like, Nicole, or whoever she’s with. Um, and I feel like that’s like… it’s very just her to me to be like, “Oh, um, let me distract you so that we don’t have to talk about this ‘cause I don’t wanna get emotional.” Which I feel like I do sometimes, too. Um, and even with her being like, “well, we can talk about this if we really want to, but I’m sure, I’m sure you don’t want to” and she, like, moves along. Um, so I feel like that’s a lot of, like, the reasons that I wrote her doing that because it just feels very fitting and, like, really in the true Waverly fashion, to have her avoid all those conversations. And I talk about it on Tumblr a lot anytime anyone, like, gifsets of her, like, distracting Nicole, I’m like, “Oh, there she is, she’s at it again.”

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] Uh, is this something that you’re going to address in, in the writing? You’ve only got one chapter left according to your current chapter count. Do you think that’s something that you’re gonna have to tackle with these characters?

LIAM : Yeah, I think that’s one of the reasons I’ve been putting off writing it [Laughs] for so long, is because I know that she’s gonna have some, like, big emotional conversation, I just really don’t know how to write that. I would much rather write funny things. But I’m like, “[sighs] I feel like I have to do this, like, just, like, give it justice. Listen, I’ve only got four chapters, other people have, like, hundreds of chapters - I think I can have her have one adult discussion in her life.”

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] Well, in fairness, the characters are teens in this story, right?

LIAM : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. So, their emotional maturity is lacking.

LIAM : And they’re, like, going through it.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, yeah.

LIAM : Yeah. But they’re, like, going through it. I feel like they’re, like, trying to be more mature, like, the older that they get. Um, and, if anyone, like, listened to the EFA live thing, I read the… what I have of the Chapter 4, and it’s basically Nicole being like, “Oh yeah, we don’t have to talk about this now” because she’s trying to hide, like, a huge secret. Um, that’s a good secret. We can, we can say that. Um, but, I think it’s nice to, like, have them switch it a little bit where they’re both kind of like, “Oh, let’s avoid this for a moment.”

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] 

LIAM : “And then we’ll come back to it later.”

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. [Laughs] ‘Wouldn’t you rather be kissing right now?’

LIAM : Yeah!

ALL : [Laugh]

LIAM : “That sounds like a much better idea, don’t you agree?”

DARKWICCAN : Yes. [Laughs]

LARAGH : [Laughs] So, um, so the world that you set these guys in seems pretty free of any homophobia, or, uh, really any indication that being gay, or bi, or anything like that is different. Was that a purposeful narrative of your experience? Or was that just something you felt like didn’t need to be shown for this story?

LIAM : Um, I think it’s kind of both, again [Laughs]. Gotta have those flighty answers. Um, even though I grew up in really, like, a, kind of a small town - it’s not that small - but, I mean, we’d… everyone in my school knew each other from the time we were, like, five. Um, you still didn’t have a lot of, like, homophobia or stuff like that ‘cause everyone kinda was just like, “Well, we know each other and we would get in trouble if we did that anyways, so we might as well not.” So I knew that, like, it’s not always the prerogative to have people be awful and hateful and I also hate seeing it in media ‘cause it really, like, makes me uncomfortable. So, I didn’t wanna write it ‘cause I feel like writing something like that is, like, something I just couldn’t do. ‘Cause I wouldn’t want to make anyone who’s reading it think that that’s, like, something that has to happen, that they have to go through. And I really just didn’t wanna, like, expose that even if it was true. 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, it’s like my, um, yeah, sometimes you just, you just don’t wanna have to deal with it, right? I mean…

LARAGH : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : ...there are enough, um, stories in the world, uh, about the queer experience that, that, uh, touch on the… touch on that, right?

LARAGH : Yeah. Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : Touch on phobias and, uh…

LARAGH : Absolutely.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. Discrimination. And, I mean, Oklahoma ain’t great as far as, um…

LIAM : No!

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, it’s not great [Laughs] for LGBT rights. Uh, yeah, so I can see why you just kinda wanna go, “You know, I’m gonna ignore that for my story ‘cause my story’s my happy place.”

LIAM : Yeah, like I’m not trying to have, like, a sad story. I just want it to be, like, kind of fun. They’re dumn. They’re doing rodeos. Who does that? So might as well just have them just, like, hang out and not… Like, I could have made Champ be, like, a super awful person, but I just didn’t wanna write that. It seemed very exhausting to me to try and make someone be awful.

DARKWICCAN : Well, to me, and I think you’ll… I mean, obviously you’ll agree as you’re the author here, I think, but, uh, it’s more interesting to make someone problematic rather than awful.

LIAM : Yeah. 

DARKWICCAN : ‘Cause I think, as you said, kind of touched on earlier, is that everybody has layers. Everybody’s got, you know, no one’s got just one, one dimensional thing. Um, and, so I, I actually feel that canon Champ isn’t homophobic, despite what happened at the, uh at the Wainwright in Season 1. 

LIAM : I agree.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, I, I think he was just sad and drunk and defensive and being a dick ‘cause he was upset.

LIAM : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Um, and of course, so he’s gonna go… But he’s not a smart guy, um, so he’s going to go for the easy punch and, unfortunately, the easy punch is to say the most common awful thing you can say. So, uh, and it just so happens that in Nicole’s case that that’s a homophobic statement. Um, and, so, yeah… I, I, think that, you know, I gotta say, poor… I feel badly for the actor who played Champ.

LIAM : Yeah! I feel like he’s really nice in real life because he looks like he’d kind of be really nice. Like, isn’t he Canadian? All Canadians are, like, nice people, I’m pretty sure. 

LARAGH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Uh… Well… [mumbles]

LARAGH : We’re gonna hope so.

DARKWICCAN : I mean…

LIAM : We’re gonna hope that they’re nice. 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah.

LIAM : But he’s… I feel like whenever anyone’s, like, bad, like, I just feel bad for the actor ‘cause everyone’s always like, “God, I hate them.” And I’m like, “He probably did his best, you know?”

DARKWICCAN : Well, I think the fact that, that Champ is so, um, unlikable is a testament to the quality of the acting involved…

LIAM : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Because he did such a good job playing the truth of that character, and the truth of that character is kind of a problematic white guy, you know? [Laughs]

LARAGH : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Straight white guy, uh, and he, he played it, uh, you know, and he’s not that smart and, uh, you know, sort of just thinks with his dick and that’s, that’s the character that the actor played and he did such a good job that people are like, ‘“[grunts]” [Laughs] I really wanna… I really wanna see him invited to an Earp Con [Laughs].

LIAM : Yes. I feel like I just, I just feel in my heart that he’s really nice. But I think that he did a really good job and he made a lot of people hate Champ. And I just want him to know that we all appreciate his efforts. 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. I think he did such a good job making people hate Champ that not even the writers on the show wanted to bring Champ back. [Laughs]

LIAM : Yeah, yeah. Wondering if he was ever gonna come back, and I was like, “No, everyone hates him too much. They’d never do that.”

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, no…

LIAM : Season 4, though. Maybe. Who knows.

DARKWICCAN : I… maybe. I don’t know. Who knows. I’m… I’m so excited to see what we get in Season 4. I mean, obviously we’re in another production hiatus, but this time it’s more like a everybody in the industry’s also hunkered down. So it’s not like… [Laughs]

LARAGH : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : So… But they got six, they got six episodes in the can. Uh, so, you know, I don’t know what the plan is gonna ultimately be. Maybe SyFy will do a thing - will do a split season like they do with, you know, like with BBC does with “Doctor Who”.

LIAM : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Um… 

LIAM : I have some...

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. Yeah, instead of making us wait another year [Laughs]. 

ALL : [Laugh]

LIAM : I’ve been thinking about that. I was like, “Are they just gonna release… Is Emily just gonna get bored while she’s sitting at home during her quarantine, be like, “Ok, here guys. Here you go. Here’s an episode.”

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. Oh man, she… That would not be good for her. [Laughs]

LARAGH : No.

DARKWICCAN : Not even JoshFromSyFy could protect her at that point. 

LIAM : Maybe Josh’ll do it. He seems like he’s just, you know, he’s a… He’s the wild card. Maybe he’ll do it.

DARKWICCAN : He is.. He kinda is the wild card, isn’t he? [Laughs]

LIAM : Yup. His Twitter’s so funny. 

DARKWICCAN : Oh man… We love JoshFromSyfy. Um, so, uh, jumping back to you a little bit. So you touched on that you did rodeo. What… what, uh, events did you participate in? [Laughs]

LIAM : Yeah, um…

DARKWICCAN : Did I get that right? Ok.

LIAM : Yeah, yeah, events. Um, they’re, yeah they’re normally events. Um, I did most of it when I was, like, really young. So that’s when, like, kids are doing, like, sheeps and stuff. 

DARKWICCAN : Aww.

LIAM : So I did, like, roping. Um, I did, like, tie-downs where you, like, run at them and then you flip ‘em over and you tie them up. 

DARKWICCAN : Ohhhh [Laughs]

LARAGH : [sad] Awww [ph]. I feel bad for the sheep.

LIAM : Yeah, it’s kind of sad. That’s why I really didn’t ever wanna do that part ‘cause I felt bad. 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah.

LIAM : But, you’re like… and then they hand you twenty-five dollars and you’re like, “Ok, I’m cool now. I’m seven.”

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, this is the most money in the world!

ALL : [Laugh]

LIAM : Yeah, my, my mom has this scrapbook for my brother ‘cause he did it, he did it more than I did. And it has, like, his little sheets that he has from… ‘Cause you get, like, little envelopes with the money in it with, like, your place on it and we, like, iron them out so they would be flat and be like, “Oh, seven dollars. Second place winner.” and you’re like, “[inaudible] so excited about that.”

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

LIAM : That’s, like, a lot of money to, like, a four year old. ‘Cause they start ‘em really young, like…

DARKWICCAN : Four?!

LIAM : Yeah. They do this thing…

LARAGH : Wow.

LIAM : I think it’s, like, you’d have to be, like, two. You have to be able to walk and run to be able to participate. But they get all the kids, and normally it’s not even kids that are, like, doing anything else, they’re just, like, kids in the rodeo arena, and they line them all up behind this rope and then they fire, like, a little, like, sound gun, and then they run and they try and get these tags off of, um, like, sheeps and, like, lambs’ tails that they’re, like, running around and if you get those tags, you get money. That’s… that’s literally it. It takes, like, ten minutes. They’re like running around after these, like, small baby animals. 

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] God. You know what? That’s adorable. 

LIAM : Oh, it’s so cute! It’s, like, one of the best things to watch ‘cause they’re so excited. They’re, like, screaming and, like, squealing about it. That was, like, the best thing. 

DARKWICCAN : Ok, see, now that, that, that I’d watch. [Laughs]

LARAGH : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : Little, little kids chasing around little baby… like little calves and little, um

LIAM : And like…

DARKWICCAN : Um, ewe… um, kids, I would totally… That’s funny - kids chasing kids. Ha-ha!

LARAGH : Yes.

LIAM : That… That was a good one. 

DARKWICCAN : Thank you.

LIAM : We’ll add that to the dad jokes.

DARKWICCAN : Hey-Oh! [ph]

ALL : [Laugh]

LIAM : Um, but they always do that first. That’s like the first thing that they do. It’s, like, one of the first events and then they actually, like, they start normally pretty young. So they do… they have a lot of kids doing stuff like that. Where they’re basically just chasing small animals. That’s pretty much all rodeo is for, like, five and unders.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] That’s hilarious. Oh, man. Yeehaw. 

ALL : [Laugh]

LIAM : Yeehaw.

LARAGH : Yeehaw. 

DARKWICCAN : Well, Liam, this has been so much fun chatting with you. Uh, and talking about rodeo and, uh, and, and theorizing on, on characters. It’s my favorite thing to do. Not the rodeo part necessarily, but the theorizing part. 

LIAM : We’ll warm you up to it, don’t worry. 

DARKWICCAN : Ok. [Laughs]

LIAM : Once they start having cons again, I’ll come and bring all this rodeo stuff and we’ll… everyone can participate. 

DARKWICCAN : There you go!

LIAM : And you can all win… You can all win small cash prizes of a dollar to five dollars. That’s all you get.

DARKWICCAN : You know what would be really hilarious? Is if, uh, you were to get, like, a little RC car and get, like, uh, a blow-up sheep like they sell at gag-gift and sex stores and blow that thing up and then tape it to the little RC car and then put a little tag on the end of it and then have people chase it around. [Laughs]

LIAM : I think I’d die. That’d be so funny. ‘Cause can you imagine… Can you imagine, like, um, like what if we’re doing it and, like, the actors come by and they’re like, “Oh my god, yeah, I wanna play this, too.”

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

LIAM : And then ev… All these genuine adults are just chasing this fake sheep with, like, a little tag on it.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] We need to get footage of that, for sure. Maybe we need to make that happen. Maybe we need to ask. You know what, let’s reach out...

LIAM : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : Let’s reach out to the conventions and be like, “Hey” [Laughs]

LIAM : Kat would do it. I feel like Kat would be like, “Yeah.” And Tim. Tim for sure. He’d put on that cowboy hat.

DARKWICCAN : Oh. Oh yeah.

LIAM : He’d be like, “First place, here we go.”

DARKWICCAN : They would tot… bo… bo… [ph] Yeah. I completely agree with you. Completely agree with you.

LIAM : I can’t wait. 

DARKWICCAN : Yes, it’s gonna be amazing. Ok, it’s happening. Alright, so!

ALL : [Laugh]

LIAM : This is our planning session.

DARKWICCAN : Yes. Uh, as you are a first-timer here on the podcast, we have a very special question for you to wrap up this little interview. So, Laragh, I pass it to you.

LARAGH : Liam.

LIAM : Yes.

LARAGH : You’re stranded on a desert island and only have one fanfic to read. What is it?

LIAM : I’m gonna get in so much trouble for this. Ok. So, I’m gonna pick “You Are A Runner And I Am My Father’s Son.” because I do truly love that fic with my entire heart. It takes up a large piece of me. But also because it’s gonna be really funny to me when Rafael listens to this and he gets mad about it.

ALL : [Laugh]

LIAM : ‘Cause I’m not gonna tell him that I picked his. He’s gonna ask, I know he is. And I’m not gonna tell him. And he’s just gonna have to know that I’m trying to embarrass him in front of a live audience ready to go that that’s the one I picked.

LIAM AND LARAGH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : That’s awesome. Uh… I’m, yes. [Laughs] Uh, ‘cause, yeah, you two have a little, little back-and-forth going on on Twitter.

LIAM : Yes, we’re married. Um, I’m sorry you guys didn’t get invited to the wedding. 

DARKWICCAN : Awww [ph].

LIAM : As soon as either he moves to Oklahoma or I move to Brazil, we will be getting married. Pretty sure…

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

LIAM : ...we were meant to be.

DARKWICCAN : That is… Well, blessings on… [Laughs] On…

LIAM : Thank you.

DARKWICCAN : On your, uh, on your, on your…

LARAGH : On your nuptials.

DARKWICCAN : [Sneezes] Excuse me.

LIAM : Thank you so much. Bless you!

DARKWICCAN : Thank you. I’ll be cutting that out. Uh, yes, blessings on you both and, and I’m more than happy to include a link to, uh, “You Are A Runner And I Am My Father’s Son” by harakiridaddy in the show notes for this episode. Liam, this has been spectacular.

LIAM : This has been lovely. I’ve loved every moment of this.

  
  


MUSIC: Don’t Deal With the Devil by Kristoffer Maddigan

DARKWICCAN: And that's all for this episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Thanks for joining us.

Tremendous thanks to Liam for chatting with us about their work!

  
  


Thanks also to our announcer Byron Tidwell for our intro 

Background music for the episode was:

A Proper Story by Darren Korb

Another Trick Up My Sleeve by Forget the Whale

Feathered Indians by Tyler Childers

and the outro music is Don't Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Madigan

  
  


If you have questions or comments for the podcast you can find us on Twitter at E-F-A underscore Podcast and on Facebook at E-F-A Podcast. 

And you can find all of our episodes, old and new, at our website E-F-A Podcast dot com.

And if you're listening on iTunes, please take a moment to rate and review our show.

  
  


Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you'll join us again next time for another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Until then, READ MORE FIC!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Episodes post Mondays at 8am PST
> 
> Visit our Website http://efapodcast.com/ for all episodes old and new!
> 
> Follow us on Twitter: @efa_podcast
> 
> And on Facebook: facebook.com/EFAPodcast


	7. Take My Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This week DW and Delayne chat best friends and roommates with author JNS!

[Click HERE to Listen!](http://efapodcast.com/take-my-hand)

Read the fic:

[Couldn’t Help Falling for You by JNS](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13705335/chapters/31481718)

Episode artwork by Chantal Zeegers

JNS’s Desert Island Fic Selection is: [Get Lost by SensitivePigeon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7824859/chapters/17861275)

Transcript by ApproxTenCats

Ep 407: Take My Hand 

[ph] – Indicates preceding word has been spelled phonetically

[sic] – Indicates preceding word has been transcribed verbatim

MUSIC : Write My Story by Olly Anna

ANNOUNCER GUY : You've tuned in to the  _ Earp Fiction Addiction _ , a fan podcast all about  _ Wynonna Earp _ fanfiction. Join our intrepid host DarkWiccan and Delayne as they dive deep into the sometimes sweet, sometimes spicy, and always varied world of fanfiction for the  _ Wynonna Earp _ fandom.

MUSIC : A Proper Story by Darren Korb

DARKWICCAN:  Thanks Announcer Guy and welcome everybody to this week’s episode of the  _ Earp Fiction Addiction _ , the podcast dedicated entirely to  _ Wynonna Earp _ fanfiction. I am your host DarkWiccan, and with me is my delightful co-host...

DELAYNE: Hi, it’s Delayne.

DARKWICCAN: Delayne how are you this week?

DELAYNE: Um… I’m okay. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, let’s not talk about- the thing, the giant elephant in the room. 

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Because we’ve talked about that the last six episodes so let’s not. So what else is going on? Hulu is finally running  _ The Golden Girls _ and I am thrilled.

DELAYNE: I did not know that. That is good to know.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, I totally-- I held myself back from tweeting Kat. [laughs] Because I’m pretty sure the  _ Golden Girls _ thing is a character trait of Nicole and not Kat Barrell but you know, I know there’s some crossover there. But I restrained myself 

DELAYNE: Who doesn’t love  _ The Golden Girls _ , come on.

DARKWICCAN: Who doesn’t? If you don’t love  _ The Golden Girls _ you are a bad person, you are bad.

DELAYNE: [laughs] We’re gonna get @ed at.

DARKWICCAN: We are, it’s fine.

DELAYNE: There’ll be one person who’s like, “I’m not a bad person, I just don’t care for it.”

DARKWICCAN: [laughs] Yeah, but how? How do you not? How?

DELAYNE: I’m really good at bringing everything down. That is my job.

DARKWICCAN: Screeching halt. “Screeching Halt” should be your nickname. Delayne “Screeching Halt” Buranek.

DELAYNE: [laughs] Alright, I’ll change my Twitter and everyone will be really confused.

DARKWICCAN: There you go, for at least a month. So what else is going on? [CONTENT CENSORED. PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT] I just want to say thank you to our transcribers.

DELAYNE: Good time to shout that out.

DARKWICCAN: We have returning transcriber approxtencats this season, and a semi-returning transcriber in khevzs. And they were doing just transcriptions for the patreon but now they have been promoted. [laughs] And they’ve been doing a great job.

DELAYNE: Is it a promotion if you do more work for the same amount of nothing?

DARKWICCAN: Yes, yes, come on, you know how corporate America works, this is normal.

DELAYNE: Right, okay yes. Wow, what is with us today. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: A little punchy, I wonder why. Don’t say it. Why don’t we talk about the story we’re here to talk about today.

DELAYNE: That sounds great.

DARKWICCAN: Awesome. So you know, I love a good-- I don’t know, how would you describe this? It’s a meet-cute but it’s also a kind of College AU, kinda sorta.

DELAYNE: I tend to compartmentalise it as a College AU. That is how I [inaudible] in my head.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, yes, but it’s also a Roommate AU with a twist. In that they're not college roommates, in fact they’re not even roommates, to start. I don’t know how to categorise this fic. I guess we’ll just go with College AU but that’s not enough. There’s too many things in this fic, in a wonderful way.

DELAYNE: Yes, it’s definitely a College AU plus. I guess.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, that’s a good one, yes.

DELAYNE: Version .75, you know, like a bonus.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, I’ll take it. It’s a college AU with a plus .75 bonus to roommates, and a role for dexterity meet-cute. 

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: And the fic we’re stumbling about right now, not really talking, just stumbling around, is called  _ Couldn’t Help Falling For You _ by JNS, known on Twitter as @JNSBeth. And I just adore it, it’s just so good. It has just the right amount of fluff, just the right amount of subtle angst. It’s not like an-n-n-gst, it’s more like  angst . 

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Here’s a little  angst that we’re going to resolve within a chapter so don’t stress about it.

DELAYNE: That is, when I was waiting for things to get dramatic--

DARKWICCAN: Yeah.

DELAYNE: There were a couple of points where I’m like, “okay it’s coming up, it’s coming up.” And it took me a little bit by surprise. I don’t know, it was just well done.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, well the funny thing is it what actually drew me to this story was, okay folks, I do read summaries, I don’t read notes, there would be the differences. But the summary was wrapped up with the phrase, “to make sure this Nicole person isn’t some secret serial killer,” and I was like, “[gasp] serial killer Nicole?”

DELAYNE: [laughs] So you were going in thinking something really different.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, way back when this fic was originally posted which was in 2018, about two years ago, a little over two years ago now, I totally initially thought [in a voice of heightened excitement] “ohmygosh it’sgoingtobeserialkillerNicole.” Not serial killer Nicole. Not serial killer Nicole. The only person I’ve seen pull that off, with great success, is Boots. So, that’s not who we’re talking about though.

DELAYNE: There’s been much discussion of it. Yeah, so Nicole is this random stranger and Waverly’s best friend Chrissy is going to move in because it’s a great deal.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, which is suspicious. Why on earth would someone be renting a room for a reasonable price in this economy?

DELAYNE: [laughs] Precisely. Especially in a college town, I mean c’mon.

DARKWICCAN: Right? C’mon. So yeah, so basically the story starts off with Chrissy moving into Nicole’s place and Waverly being deeply suspicious of this entire situation. But then of course as happens with Waverly she immediately is flummoxed by, well first by a scent, and then by just... Nicole. I love the way the first time she’s meeting Nicole she’s not even meeting Nicole, she’s meeting Nicole’s-- wait--

DELAYNE: No, she meets Nicole brushing her teeth and rushing out.

DARKWICCAN: So it’s not really a meet, it’s like a flyby, it’s a driveby is what it is. But she’s left standing in the bathroom where Nicole just was which is nice and steamy and delightfully scented with soaps and whatnot, Nicole’s soaps. Basically her first impression of Nicole I will say is not the teeth brushing but in fact the smell.

DELAYNE: Right. Then it’s abruptly thrown from her mind because there is...

DARKWICCAN: A wild Shae approaches.

DELAYNE: A wild naked Shae. [laughs] Or practically naked.

DARKWICCAN: First impressions, you only get one chance at a first impression. And what I love is she runs into a basically naked Shae and Shae basically just grunts at her.

DELAYNE: Like, “get out of the bathroom, uuggh.” 

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, “uuggh”

DELAYNE: “Who the fuck are you? I need to use my bathroom. Move.”

DARKWICCAN: So yeah, that’s our introduction to both Nicole and Shae, rather abrupt and polar opposites of each other.

DELAYNE: It’s definitely driveby, slam, what the heck just happened? I don’t know what’s going on? Thrown. Waverly is thrown.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, was-- hold on, was Shae naked? 

DELAYNE: I think she was in her underpants.

DARKWICCAN: Underwear. That doesn’t count as naked. Sheez. I was so confused, like I don’t recall her being buck naked. That’s an entirely different impression to leave on somebody.

DELAYNE: I’m sure to Waverly at that moment it was about as abrupt as seeing someone almost naked. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: I get-- I mean it’s a shock to turn around and there’s a person there, but like--

DELAYNE: Standing in their underwear.

DARKWICCAN: I guess, but i’ve always-- Thanks to the invention of the itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny-polka-dot-bikini of the sixties, I kind of equate underwear these days with just dry bikini-wear. You know what I mean? I don’t find it like, “oh you’re in your mussentuchits.” Or whatever.

DELAYNE: [laughs] What the fuck?

DARKWICCAN: So in parts of the south, a ladies garden area is referred to as a mussentuchit. I just took that term and appropriated it to mean underwear in general. For this joke. Explaining a joke is the best.

DELAYNE: Either way I’m going to be laughing, and people are going to be laughing along with me, or at me, however they do it, doesn’t matter. Anyway yes so [inaudible] a naked wild Shae appears.

DARKWICCAN: Exactly, yes, that’s true, it is. So yes, those of you who have been listening and are going, “Oh no Shae is here?” Yeah, Shae is here. But don’t worry folks this is a Wayhaught story, so ultimately we know which way things are going to go.

DELAYNE: Now it’s always the question of, is it a long angsty split before they get together slow burn? How long is Shae going to be in the picture? We’ll spoil it. It’s not very long. It’s a quick.

DARKWICCAN: What’s funny is that this is JNS’s first attempt at a slow burn and most attempts at a slow burn.

DELAYNE: [laughs] Absolutely the opposite of a slow burn.

DARKWICCAN: But you can tell that they were really trying.

DELAYNE: If you’re a couple of chapters in and you’re screaming at your characters to kiss already I can understand how you think that’s a slow burn. I get it. I’ve been there.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, yeah. So eventually they get together and one thing I really like about the way JNS has handled the storytelling here is that they do deal with Waverly’s sort of internal gay panic, they deal with her having to make the decision to not only acknowledge this part of herself but also come out and come out in stages to various people at various times. And I like the fact that it’s handled I think in a very realistic way. And I will just say that everyone in Waverly’s life is very liberal so don’t stress about, again it’s light angst, it’s angst on a diet.

DELAYNE: [laughs] Angst on a diet. Angst light.

DARKWICCAN: Angst lite, L-I-T-E. Yeah, so it doesn’t really ever get heavy for Waverly. She keeps kind of waffling which I think is very realistic, she keeps waffling from, “it’s not a big deal,” to “ Oh god, it’s a big deal. And I have to do this at the right time, and I’m really not worried they will be upset about it but I have to do this right, I have to do this right.” And so sometimes things work out in her favour and sometimes they go a little sideways. Because she keeps hesitating. So-- yeah.

DELAYNE: What I like about this is the dynamic between Nicole, Chrissy and Waverly. Because Chrissy’s the roommate and Waverly’s best friend, and everyone’s worried about-- I mean even Nicole at the beginning, and hopefully I’m not spoiling too much, but Shae is just like, “I don’t need to know these people who live in your house.” But Nicole is, “I want to get to know my roommate and be friends,” and it’s like why is that so complicated? So Nicole's really putting forth the effort of being friends with her roommate and so I’ve been in many roommate situations and friends becoming roommates or friends roommating with other friends, it gets complicated and that’s definitely where the drama comes in and I love it.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, definitely. And I will say that the Shae here is different from canon Shae.

DELAYNE: Yes.

DARKWICCAN: But in a-- kind of like-- I feel like Emily worked really hard to make Shae in canon be as likeable as possible considering the circumstances. 

DELAYNE: Definitely did not just-- here we’ll make her the bad guy, easy to hate.

DARKWICCAN: Right. She wanted to make Shae multidimensional and realistic and recognise that people are generally not villains, unless they are written to be that way, or incredibly stupid and the President of the country. But anyway, anyway, anyway-- Most people are not cartoon villains, most people are layered like Shrek’s onion and so she worked really hard to give the Shae of canon these layers. I honestly feel like she worked really hard to make Shae likeable because she knew people were going to be up in arms at her very existence in the first place.

DELAYNE: Exactly.

DARKWICCAN: So this Shae is, I feel, she’s just as layered, given the brief bit we see her and get to know her and she’s just a certain personality type. And I will say this personality type, I have met this person, I have known people like this, and it’s not that they’re bad people they’re just very particular about where they focus their energy. 

DELAYNE: Valid.

DARKWICCAN: So whereas Emily worked really hard to make canon Shae super-likeable, JNS does not do the same here, but I still think they are presenting a realistic personality, not someone who is extreme in any direction.

DELAYNE: And it’s a reasonable dynamic because my brother had a relationship which had a similar dynamic, my brother being the Nicole, and his girlfriend being the Shae, and obviously that didn’t work out. [laughs] Because they’re definitely looking for two very different kinds of relationships. 

DARKWICCAN: Right, that type of difference is not manageable long term. Something will give. Someone will throw up their hands and say that’s it and call it a day. But unlike other representations of Shae that I’ve seen where the author has made the choice to make her a true villain, like just a very bad person, that’s not the case here. And I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for that. I much prefer a dynamic realistic representation, over a moustachioed, twirling the evil moustache, with the black hat, cartoon villain type.

DELAYNE: [laughs] I’m just picturing Shae with the moustache twirling it, that’s pretty funny.

DARKWICCAN: Me too. And you know the actress is kind of cute so that would be kind of funny.

DELAYNE: Yes, I agree.

DARKWICCAN: Because the actress is on  _ Letterkenny _ , I can see her on  _ Letterkenny _ with a false moustache for a  _ Letterkenny _ Halloween episode or something. Anyway, we’re off topic. So steering us back firmly to this story. [laughs]

DELAYNE: Um, let’s see. I don’t know, I feel like we can dive more into the slow burn.

DARKWICCAN: What there is of it? Yes. I like the fact that Waverly is trying to be-- first of all she’s coming to terms with herself, trying to figure herself out, and be honest with herself.

DELAYNE: Yes.

DARKWICCAN: Second of all she’s also trying to be respectful of the fact that Nicole has gone through what on her side is a difficult break up. And is grieving the loss of this problematic but longish term relationship and so Waverly is walking this balancing beam of, “Okay, do I have feelings? What are feelings? And am I gay now? Gay always? I don’t know, but damn she’s hot, but no I can’t, I can’t, because she’s sad.” [laughs]

DELAYNE: She’s sad, and she needs to grieve.

DARKWICCAN: Be respectful Waverly.

DELAYNE: But when she’s feeling back on the rebound do I want to encourage that because--

DARKWICCAN: Right, “Do I want to be the rebound chick? No, but ah, she’s so amazing.” No, down Waverly.

DELAYNE: But would I also want to watch her with someone else being a rebound chick?

DARKWICCAN: And what i really love is the majority of-- I would say the first five chapters are Waverly’s point of view, and then in chapter six we get a POV swap where suddenly we’re in Nicole’s point of view and we basically see the entire story in one chapter, kind of a  _ Cliff’s Notes _ version, catching us up from Nicole’s point of view. And then from that point forward we kind of go back and forth between the pair of them and who’s got the steering wheel. And I like that. Normally a POV swap like that, like what seems to be midway through a story is kind of like “eh?”

DELAYNE: It can seem very abrupt.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, it can seem jarring and what is? Okay. But I liked it. I was like, “You know what, I do want to know what’s going on in Nicole’s head so thank you JNS for giving us the answer to that.”

DELAYNE: Right, because we needed to see what happened with Shae, we wouldn’t’ve got that at all.

DARKWICCAN: Exactly, it would all have been-- unless we had a point in the future of the storytelling where Waverly goes, “So what happened between you and Shae?” And then we have this six paragraph expositional monologue from Nicole. Which is never a good idea guys, never a good idea. Just putting that out there as a writing tip.

DELAYNE: So sometimes a POV switch is good because it prevents that from happening then.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. So I liked it, and I think that JNS writes really well in both voices which is a skill, it is really a skill. Some writers have an easier time writing one character’s point of view than the other. So--

DELAYNE: [laughs] It just makes me think about how often people write Wynonna-- so I’m thinking about Wynonna in this fic, she’s definitely not heavily but I’m glad she is present. Very supportive, I love how supportive she is.

DARKWICCAN: Yes. And guys we do get a drunk Wynaught scene and it is fantastic.

DELAYNE: yeah, I mean who does not love a classic drunken Wynaught BroTP.

DARKWICCAN: Heck yeah.

DELAYNE: There’s some great lines too that we get a bit of canon dialogue thrown in and it’s not always in a precise way but it’s always fun and I love it when authors do that.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, I love reclamations. They’re like little easter eggs. I really like JNS’s writing style, it’s a very easy style, and by that I don’t mean simple, it’s not simple, but it’s an easy style to read. It flows very nicely, it’s not overly expositional, it’s not overly descriptive. They’ve managed to hit that perfect balance point. 

DELAYNE: Now that you mention it yeah, I don’t want to say easy read because that doesn’t sound right, or quick read-- but I guess easy flow?

DARKWICCAN: Yes, it flows very very nicely. Again you can tell that JNS does have experience writing. The structure is solid, it’s turn of phrases are great, I mean very vivid. The writing’s very vivid, I can picture these things as they’re happening and I can say that while I do have an easy time being able to visualise most of the time when authors are writing, whether it’s a fanfic author or an actual published work. A work that was lucky enough to be published, let’s put it that way, not an actual work. Because fanfiction is actual work. But I generally have a relatively easy time of visualising, but some visions are more vivid than others. And I will say that JNS’s writing for me does create vivid scene settings. And I can say that one of the only other authors that I think gets this vivid is Wrackwonder. So when you’re writing on that level of almost cinematic-- I would say that where Wrackwonder’s writing is cinematic, JNS’s writing is high quality TV cinematography.

DELAYNE: Right. I was going to say situational, and I guess that would be more television than cinema. Smaller screen but still a lot of depth.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, it’s very easy to picture not only the characters in these scenarios but the scene settings themselves and I think that is typically where writers can have a little bit of a struggle or a deficit in that they may nail the characters, you can see the characters faces and body language perfectly in your mind by the descriptions provided but you may not necessarily be able to see their environment.

DELAYNE: Yeah. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Glad to have you with me Delayne. I’m so happy you agree.

DELAYNE: You’re better with words than I so if you describe something well why can’t I just say, “Yeah, sure, sounds great.”

DARKWICCAN: Okay, alright, alright, okay. Anyway--

DELAYNE: That’s what I’m here for.

DARKWICCAN: Yes. So why don’t we sit down with the venerable author JNS and chat with them about this delightful story that they have written that has also spawned a sequel that is a very sweet little sequel. We’re not talking about that one today. I’m just saying it exists. But yeah, why don’t we sit down to talk with JNS but hey Delayne before we do that guess what?

DELAYNE: What?

[CONTENT CENSORED. PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT]

  
  


MUSIC:  Can't Help Falling in Love by by Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore, and George David Weiss

  
  
  


DARKWICCAN: And welcome back everybody to the  _ Earp Fiction Addiction _ , the podcast dedicated entirely to  _ Wynonna Earp _ fanfiction. I remain your host DarkWiccan and with me is my beloved co-host--

DELAYNE: Hi, it’s Delayne.

DARKWICCAN: And joining us to chat about the wonderful story  _ Couldn’t Help Falling For You _ is the author JNS who we’re calling Beth. Beth, welcome to the show.

BETH: Hello.

DARKWICCAN: Hello, how are you doing today?

BETH: I’m good, I’m good, yeah. I got outside for a little bit today, so that’s good, especially at the moment. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Right.

BETH: Feels weird to say that that is a privilege but at the moment yeah it is.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, what’s the weather like over there?

BETH: It’s gray, it’s pretty standard, pretty standard for Scotland.

DARKWICCAN: So basically the same as it is here in the Pacific Northwest. Just gray.

DELAYNE: I’d think pretty similar. [laughs]

BETH: Pretty similar yeah.

DELAYNE: I’ve been to both places.

DARKWICCAN: Rub it in Delayne, rub it in, you cultured world traveller you.

DELAYNE: I was curious about the weather too because I know when that sunshine comes out--

BETH: It is, it’s like gold.

DELAYNE: [several inaudible words] Princes St gardens and you’re lying about.

BETH: It’s been so nice actually the past few days. Today’s the first gray day in like a week. So it has been pretty good up until now.

DARKWICCAN: You know what I think our weather patterns are following each other because just last week it was sunny pretty much every day and then we’ve finally had some cloud cover and some rain at the end of last week and the funny thing is that because certain jobs can still function whether or not they’re food related or shipping related and one of those things is exterior home painting because they’re outside you and they don’t need to come in and you don’t need to talk to them except to say, “Yes, please start painting my house.” So we’re having our trim redone and the funny thing is that the guy was like, “Okay yeah we should bang this out pretty quick especially considering how nice the weather has been.” And literally the next day dumped rain and I’m like, “Shouldn’t have said anything buddy, keep it to yourself.” You don’t say it out loud. We know this, we know this, it’s the same as if you go to wash your car it’s doing the rain dance. Don’t do it. But up here it’s the same when there’s a sunny day. It’s basically like the munchkins of the  _ Wizard of Oz: _ “come out, come out, wherever you are.” Yeah.

DELAYNE: [laughs] It’s a good day when DW breaks out into song.

DARKWICCAN: [laughs] But yes these days we can only come out as far as our yards and our back gardens. But we still come out.

BETH: Yeah. I live in a kind of flat community so there’s a few different buildings around me and most of these neighbours I’ve never spoken to before in my life, but right now obviously because of all of this no one’s seeing anyone else so everyone is very friendly all of a sudden. Which is, I mean it’s really nice, but it’s just not something you would necessarily have here normally, you know what I mean? Like, I don’t know how it is in the States if people generally know their neighbours-

DARKWICCAN: Depends on the region.

BETH: -most people here, especially if they don’t live in a tight knit community, they don’t know. They have no idea who their neighbours are.

DELAYNE: But now you’ve met them so yay.

DARKWICCAN: And now you know, in case of emergency, you know your neighbour.

BETH: Yeah, one hundred percent.

DARKWICCAN: In the States it absolutely depends on the region where you are and the culture of that region. The best description I’ve ever heard given of the United States by someone not from the US is that the United States is sort of like an uncultured Europe, where each state is kind of like it’s own micro country.

BETH: Yeah, I was in the States last year, I didn’t see a great deal, I managed to go through a few different states and each one I was in was just completely different from the previous one I was in. I mean, everyone speaks about it in Europe and stuff as the US as a singular entity but it’s not, it’s so different depending on where you are.

DARKWICCAN: And it’s so important that people understand that, especially now. Yeah, but anyway that’s not what we’re here to talk about. We’re here to talk about your writing which is fantastic.

BETH: Hmm, thank you.

DARKWICCAN: Hey, I’m just being honest, man. Your writing really is terrific. Of course we waxed poetical about it for the full extent of the first segment of the show so I’m really excited to be able to chat with you about it. We spoke briefly in person at EhCon right?

BETH: Yes. I gave you some Irn Bru for Delayne-- 

DARKWICCAN: No it was Expo. Wasn’t it Expo?

BETH: Expo yeah.

DARKWICCAN: Expo, that’s what it was. Yes, you gave me some Irn Bru to send to Delayne and Delayne how were you upon receiving that?

DELAYNE: I was super excited and then I showed it to my wife so I only got half.

DARKWICCAN: Oh no. Curses. So for those folks listening who don’t know what Irn Bru is, what is it?

BETH: That’s a good question to be honest.

DARKWICCAN: No one really knows.

BETH: it’s really hard to describe, I took some extras with me to Expo and I let a few of the other fic Earpers that I’d been friendly with on Twitter and stuff, I’d let them try it. I don’t think any of them could really pinpoint an exact flavour.

DELAYNE: No, sweet, it might be orange flavoured but it is not orange flavoured.

BETH: It doesn’t taste of orange, it doesn’t taste of anything.

DELAYNE: I think Laragh said it, I’ve heard Laragh call it rusty bubblegum.

BETH: Okay, sure.

DELAYNE: The closest i’ve ever heard.

DARKWICCAN: Wait, and people enjoy this?

DELAYNE: Yes, it’s delicious.

BETH: Well, Scotland is the only country in the entire world, don’t fact check this because I could be lying, it’s apparently the only country in the world where Coca Cola is not the number one selling soft drink. It’s Irn Bru in Scotland.

DARKWICCAN: Wow, well now I wanna try some.

DELAYNE: I’m surprised that I didn’t-- did I not? Okay. 

DARKWICCAN: It’s heavily caffeinated though right?

BETH: I don’t know about heavily? Probably the same as a coke. I’ve never really looked up the level.

DARKWICCAN: That would explain why I didn’t sample any before.

DELAYNE: That makes sense, yes.

DARKWICCAN: But maybe in the next six to-- six or so months I’ll be able to go back to caffeine.

DELAYNE: [laughs] Yeah, when you’re back on the caffeine it’s gonna hit you hard.

DARKWICCAN: Anyway, that’s a whole ‘nother conversation for a whole different show. Or even a zoom chat. So let’s, sorry, I tried to steer us towards the story and then I steered us away again, bad host, no cookie. Okay so let’s actually dive into your story. Okay, how would you classify this story because we were struggling to classify it. We ended up calling it a college AU with a plus 7 bonus to roommates and a roll for dexterity meet-cute. What would you describe this story?

BETH: That’s a pretty good synopsis yeah. I don’t know, I found it pretty difficult as well. I can’t remember what I tagged this as?

DELAYNE: I think you tagged this as a College AU.

BETH: Yeah, I think I tagged it as a College AU and then as I was going through I was like-- it seemed less and less like a College AU the further it got in. But obviously they left college so I guess it was fine. It started in college so I feel like the tag is allowed.

DELAYNE: Yes.

DARKWICCAN: Oh absolutely.

DELAYNE: Sorry, I actually went to go look it up and now I need to go back to the question that I actually have for you. You, Beth, you noted that you liked where the idea was headed, like you were excited. And you were happy people were responding to your first chapter or so because you wanted to tell the story. That made me curious as to how much you had written, or outlined, or plotted before you started posting?

BETH: Before I started posting I probably had about three to four chapters written in full and then probably the rest of it was briefly outlined. So the way I tend to write is I will write in note form on my phone. So the time when I was writing this fic I was getting the bus to and from work every day, and it was about a 25 to 30 minute journey everyday. So that gave me so much writing time everyday and I was able to write on my phone. And I did it occasionally during work as well but that’s fine. 

DELAYNE: [laughs]

BETH: So I would write everything on my phone and then I would transfer it to my laptop and I would write it out fully. So I think when i started posting I had pretty much the whole thing written on my phone. It just hadn’t necessarily been changed into the long form version of the story. But yeah, I don’t think I could do it now the way that I did it then because it was stressful and I hadn’t finished writing the full thing before I started posting. I really like writing everything now and at least having my first draft of a first chapter. Maybe I've not sent it to a beta yet but it’s ready to go to beta stage before I start posting anything. Because yeah, it’s a lot less stressful. 

DARKWICCAN: Nice to have a firm platform under you to get going to start.

BETH: And not that I-- I don’t judge anyone for abandoning fics and all this kind of stuff because it happens. People either lose the way that the story was going or they just decide that it’s not something they want to do anymore but for me if I start something I really like to finish it. No matter what that is. Whether that’s fic or something else. I want to get to the end of the project that I’m working on. So I think if I put less stress on myself I’m much more likely to actually finish it. If I stress myself out I’m more likely to just give up because I’m like this is way too stressful. I don’t want to be doing this anymore.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, when it stops being fun.

DELAYNE: At least you know yourself.

DARKWICCAN: So speaking of stress and anxiety, kind of from the start of this story Waverly seems like a slightly more superficially anxious person than we’ve kind of seen her be in the past, at least in canon. What made you decide to explore this facet of her character a little more deeply.

BETH: I think it’s interesting when you have Waverly in a world, or any of the characters really in a world where there’s no Revenants and there’s no very specific danger that they’re in all the time. So I think it’s kind of fun, not fun necessarily, but you know it’s interesting to play with their anxieties. Where would they lie if they weren’t constantly worried about being killed by supernatural creatures? You know, so she’s come from a small town, she’s moved to a bigger city, she grew up somewhere where everyone knows everyone so I think that kind of leads her anxiety to just be a bit more free flowing rather than specific on one focus like the Revenants. Yeah, yeah. I think I like seeing how all the characters would react and just be in a world where they don’t have this danger hanging over their head all the time. Because it creates so many different AU possibilities.

DARKWICCAN: Oh, yes, I completely agree with you there, absolutely. It’s interesting in that I hadn’t really thought of it that way. Yeah, you’re absolutely right, you take away the threat of imminent death, where does your anxiety go? So maybe it goes to thinking that your best friend’s new roommate might be a serial killer for a hot minute. Or classic gay panic.

BETH: Right. Exactly, yeah. Especially once she meets Nicole and she can’t speak to Chrissy about what she thinks she’s feeling because Chrissy’s literally just moved in with her. Of course she’s going to spiral quite easily into worrying about what this means, or who she is now, because she can’t speak to her best friend about it. Because her best friend is now living with the person who she doesn’t know if she’s gay for or not.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah. 

DELAYNE: Yeah, the way that you explore characters definitely adore-- we did mention in the first half Rosita and Jeremy of course--

BETH: Yeah.

DELAYNE: I love them. But my question is what you did with Shae and was your decision to make her the not-the-commitment-type, was that merely based on getting rid of her quickly or was there more to it?

BETH: Well, I mean honestly, kind of. But only because the way that I saw it, without that side to her I don’t see her and Nicole in this kind of world breaking up. Because they were happy, as far as everyone else could see. They were getting along well. Nicole didn’t seem too bothered about the fact that Shae didn’t want to move in with her but obviously that’s not one hundred percent true, she was a little bit bothered by it. So I think the more that i started planning out the story the more I knew I wanted to spend time on Nicole and Waverly after Nicole and Shae had broken up. And because it was a slow burn I knew that was going to be a relatively sizable portion of the fic. So I didn’t want to spend so much time with Nicole and Shae’s relationship being an obstacle to Waverly because she wouldn’t-- I don’t know how it would be if Nicole was taken in the show, rather than it being Waverly being the one that was unavailable. Do you know what I mean? So like--

DELAYNE: I know a lot of authors have mentioned that.

BETH: I don’t know that Wverly would ever have pursued a Nicole who was in a relationship in the same way that Nicole didn’t necessarily pursue her but she definitely showed her interest. Even though Waverly was with someone else. Even though he was not a nice guy.

DARKWICCAN: Champ doesn’t count.

DELAYNE: [laughs] That’s why most fic writers use Perry instead.

BETH: I mean I don’t mind Champ being a background character. I find it difficult to write him consistently throughout a fic because he’s not someone that I like. Like someone like Tucker, I don't think I’ve ever included Tucker in a fic because I hate Tucker and the character of him so much that I just can’t bring myself to write him at all. Because most of the time when I write humans I like to have some sort of redeeming quality to them when I’m writing them. If I’m writing Bobo or another Revenant I don’t care, they don’t need to have any redeeming qualities. But if I’m writing a person I want them to and I find it very difficult to find anything remotely redeeming about Tucker.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, that’s something we were chatting about in the first segment is how you did a really great job of capturing Shae as a multidimensional person who maybe isn’t as idealised as the Shae from canon. Because we talked about how Emily really worked to make Shae likeable because she knew that people were going to be torches ready to go when the character appeared. So I think you made a more realistic problematic Shae. She’s not a bad person, her priorities are just not the same as Nicole’s. 

BETH: Yeah. And I think it was almost a good thing for her to tell Nicole that. To say to Nicole we don’t want the same things, we shouldn’t draw this out. Because sometimes people stay in relationships they shouldn’t stay in. And a couple of years down the line things get more complicated, it’s more complicated at the end than they could have been when maybe the first kind of “Ah, maybe we shouldn’t continue this” started up.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, that should have been the first clue. Like uhhh--

BETH: Red flags. They’re important.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Yes, they are. But who is it that said when you wear rose coloured glasses there are no red flags. 

BETH: It is hard to see them. It’s so hard to see them.

DARKWICCAN: It’s hard enough to see them right? You put on red tinted glasses and it’s over. So speaking of struggles and feelings and whatnot. Waverly’s struggles with her feelings about Nicole, which we touched on earlier, feel rooted in reality. What made you-- apparently my favourite phrase today is what made you decide to explore this? What made you want to dive into this a bit more than the show had time to?

BETH: Well, I mean I love the show and I totally understand that they can’t spend an endless amount of time on the Wayhaught relationship and how it grew, obviously there’s so much we don’t see in season one of how they went from barely knowing each other to suddenly best friends. [laughs] So I think I just wanted to give it more screen time. Just to give the reality of it a bit more-- or a bit more footing in reality. I think I wrote in this one, I think I wrote it in a couple of them to be honest, where Waverly will research online about her newfound attraction to women. And I think that is something that is realistic for a lot of people around about my age and younger I guess. Because I mean I definitely went online when I was younger and I started thinking, “Oh maybe i’m not one hundred percent straight?” And you see all these other people who are asking the exact same questions online. And it doesn’t matter how old they are, or how old you are at the time, you’ve all got that similar sort of fear, “I’m not normal am I?” And then you find all these other people and it’s like, “Okay, it’s not as bad.”

DELAYNE: Plus the research is important.

DARKWICCAN: The research is very important.

BETH: I think Waverly would be very comforted by being able to go online and see all these people going through the exact same things as her, maybe not researching it nearly as much as she would, but coming to the same conclusions of, “Okay, yeah, maybe I’m not straight.”

DARKWICCAN: And that is really such a gift that millennials, zillennials, whatever we’re in right now, Generation X, Generation Y, that previous generations didn’t have. You know it used to be you didn’t know it was even an option. Which is so true of so many of the Gen Xers and older millennials will tell you depending on the environment they grew up in they didn’t even know it was an option.

BETH: Yeah, exactly, if you didn’t have access-- it’s one of the things I think I’m so passionate about sharing this sort of stuff, fanfic online Because I think it makes such a huge difference to younger kids who don’t have the ability to sit and watch the TV in the living room and watch a show that’s got a gay couple in it because their parents are potentially paying attention to what they watch, but they can read fanfic on their phone.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah exactly.

DELAYNE: Yes.

DARKWICCAN: In an incognito tab 

DELAYNE: [inaudible] fanfic.

DARKWICCAN: Yes.

DELAYNE: You did start this out without a beta and then you mentioned, because I read the notes, you mentioned you gained a beta after you’d started this fic. So was this your first beta experience?

BETH: For like a proper beta? Yes. I had a friend of mine who was a very casual fan of the show who was reading my stuff beforehand. But then life got really crazy for her and I didn’t want to pile on top of that by keeping asking her to read my fic all the time. Because I think at the time when I started writing this one I was also posting another one, and I didn’t really show any signs of stopping so it was just really a lot. And I thought if I have someone who is really a little bit more into the fanfic side of things I would be more comfortable piling on all my fic onto them. And I got incredibly lucky that Lucky, ha ha, reached out to me on Tumblr to see if she could beta for me, and the best thing ever to be honest. So I was the first person, she’d never done beta before, and the first thing that I said is I need someone who is going to say no to me, I need someone who will tell me the truth. And even though never done it before in a fanfic setting, the more we spoke and I got to know her, it was just so easy to trust that if I put my chapter in Lucky’s hands then it was going to be fine. I feel very very privileged to be the first person that she betaed for in this fandom. I feel so very lucky.

DARKWICCAN: That’s amazing. I thought Lucky had been betaing for ages and ages.

BETH: I mean, like in a work setting she’d been doing it a lot. But not in a fanfic setting. 

DELAYNE: Ah.

DARKWICCAN: Gotcha, okay.

BETH: So editing, grammar, all the stuff she was doing for that obviously transfers really well for the basic side of beta. But you need to have someone who is into the show and into the fanfic side of things to really have that good beta writer relationship. And for ages I was like, “when are you going to write? When are you going to write? When are you going to write?” “Eventually, eventually.” i think it was about me and three or four other people eventually got her to post on AO3.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: You got lucky.

DELAYNE: Everyone got lucky.

BETH: Well that’s the thing. Now Lucky betas for everyone? Kind of? Now. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: It’s basically Lucky or Smurf. Like those are the kind of--

BETH: But there’s a reason why so many people ask her to beta. There’s a reason why. It’s not just, “Oh I know that name.” The trust that I have I’m sure every other writer that works with Lucky had the exact same trust.

DELAYNE: It definitely helps, as you said, to not only be good at the grammar stuff but also to be really into the show. That’s a hard combo to find.

BETH: Yeah, definitely. Because you’re not necessarily going to find someone who is. They might be a very enthusiastic beta but they might not have either the show knowledge or the grammar side of things down as much as you would maybe want. And then I finally got to meet Lucky in person last year at EhCon so that was great. Because obviously we’d only ever spoken over Tumblr, Twitter, and then you finally get to meet someone who’s done so much work on your fics. So obviously I had to bring whisky and sugary treats.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, you must keep your beta well watered and fed, absolutely.

DELAYNE: Don’t forget to feed your beta. [laughs]

BETH: You should make a t-shirt.

DARKWICCAN: That would make a great t-shirt, it would. Speaking of the writing process, how difficult was it for you to maintain as much of the slow burn as you did as you were writing?

BETH: Oh, so so difficult. I find it so hard to write slow burns. And not just skip ahead and write the bits I really want to write because I’ve got them in my head and I can’t just skip, because I really like to write chronologically in terms of the chapters. So whether or not chapter three is set before chapter one I still have to write them in the order that the chapters are going to come out. So I wrote the Nicole point of view chapter where it kind of touches on a lot of things that happen in the previous chapters. I wrote that after I had written all the other chapters even though I was desperate to just skip and write that because I knew what I wanted to write in those bits. But I forced myself to stick with the slow burn. But I think it helps. Because my anticipation and the building of it is the same as what I’m trying to convey in the writing so I hope it comes out as I’m writing. Because I’m annoyed that they’re not together yet.

DELAYNE: It definitely was coming across. You could see that this author is screaming, “Kiss already, you idiots.” You mentioned that in your notes too.

BETH: I find it very difficult-- and I’m writing a slow burn right now and it’s-- yeah. It’s difficult.

DARKWICCAN: Is it killing you softly?

BETH: A little bit. They’re getting there though. They’ve almost kissed, once, so they’re getting there.

DARKWICCAN: Hey man, slow burns are hard. Slow burns are hard because you have to have that self control that maybe the characters don’t want you to have. Thirsty, thirsty characters.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

BETH: But I know as well when I’m reading other people’s slow burns and I’m like “Oh my god, come on.” And I know that that’s exactly what people are probably doing when they’re reading mine. I think I was very mean in this particular fic because I did like a Waverly’s point of view where everyone kind of knew they were about to kiss and then I ended the chapter and then I uploaded the next chapter the next week and it was Nicole’s point of view going from the very beginning of the story again up to the exact same point. So I don’t know how many people I pissed off doing that.

DARKWICCAN: Oh I loved it.

DELAYNE: It was great.

DARKWICCAN: I loved it, it was great. Well this has been a joy talking to you today and I’m very excited to see this slow burn of yours that you’re currently working on.

BETH: Yeah, if it gets there.

DARKWICCAN: I’m sure it will, I’m sure 

BETH: Isolation is fueling the creativity.

DARKWICCAN: Well, sometimes things that fuel the creativity are other fics. So with that in mind Delayne would you ask Beth our final question.

DELAYNE: Alright, here’s the dreaded question. You are stranded on a desert island and can have only one fanfic to read. What is it?

BETH: I had such a hard time with this question because there’s so many amazing, amazing fics in this fandom. Like it’s mind blowing just how many in this tiny fandom are so, so good. But if I had to pick one it would have to be  _ Get Lost _ by Sensitive Pigeon.

DARKWICCAN: Excellent.

BETH: The way they set out that world, the flow, the humour alongside the horror, it’s amazing, it’s phenomenal. I could have a list a mile long with what I would want to have with me, but yeah, if I could have only one, it has to be that one.

DARKWICCAN: Well, I think that is an excellent choice. It is a fan favourite and I am thrilled to once again include it in our show notes for this episode so that others who maybe haven’t checked this out will have the opportunity to. It’s funny in that  _ Get Lost _ and  _ One Eighty  _ are two of the most popular selections for our desert island fics, but I will say that  _ One Eighty _ edges out  _ Get Lost _ because I think the horror element of  _ Get Lost _ is delightfully horrific.. So if you want a good horror movie, a well crafted thriller that also has some terrific comedy in it please do check out  _ Get Lost _ by Sensitive Pigeon. Well Beth we’re gonna let you get back to your garden.

BETH: Thank you.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: You’re welcome. Not that you’re gardening. Just if there’s a garden you can stand in right now, that would probably be nice.

BETH: Yeah, go out and enjoy the gray skies.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, exactly.

  
  


And that's all for this episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Thanks for joining us.

Tremendous thanks to JNS for chatting with us about their work!

  
  


Thanks also to our announcer Byron Tidwell for our intro 

Background music for the episode was:

A Proper Story by Darren Korb

Les aiguilles tremblaient entre chaque seconde BY November Polaroid 

Can't Help Falling in Love by Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore, and George David Weiss

and the outro music is Don't Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Madigan

  
  


If you have questions or comments for the podcast you can find us on Twitter at E-F-A underscore Podcast and on Facebook at E-F-A Podcast. 

And you can find all of our episodes, old and new, at our website E-F-A Podcast dot com.

And if you're listening on iTunes, please take a moment to rate and review our show.

  
  


Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you'll join us again next time for another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Until then, READ MORE FIC!

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Episodes post Mondays at 8am PST
> 
> Visit our Website http://efapodcast.com/ for all episodes old and new!
> 
> Follow us on Twitter: @efa_podcast
> 
> And on Facebook: facebook.com/EFAPodcast


	8. Schemes and Jellybeans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This week on the show DW and Delayne indulge their sweet tooths as they discuss a fake marriage AU with a twist. Then they chat with author RainbowBus!

[Click HERE to Listen!](http://efapodcast.com/schemes-and-jellybeans)

Read the fic!

####  [It's My Wedding and I'll Cry if I Want To](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17738786) by [RainbowBus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainbowBus/pseuds/RainbowBus)

Episode artwork by Chantal Zeegers

RainbowBus's Desert Island Fic Selection is: [Three Thousand Miles, Two I Love You's, One Last Goodbye](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15215519) by [Em_McConachie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_McConachie/pseuds/Em_McConachie)

EP408 - Schemes and Jellybeans - Transcript by Edin-Earper

[ph] – Indicates preceding word has been spelled phonetically 

[sic] – Indicates preceding word has been transcribed verbatim

MUSIC : Write My Story by Olly Anna

ANNOUNCER GUY : You've tuned in to the Earp Fiction Addiction, a fan podcast all about  _ Wynonna Earp _ fanfiction. Join our intrepid host DarkWiccan and Delayne as they dive deep into the sometimes sweet, sometimes spicy, and always varied world of fanfiction for the  _ Wynonna Earp _ fandom.

MUSIC : A Proper Story by Darren Korb

DARKWICCAN: Thanks, Announcer Guy, and welcome everybody to another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction, the podcast dedicated entirely to Wynonna Earp fanfiction. I am your host, Darkwiccan, and with me, quickly scarfing down an entire bag of skittles and chasing it with a Monster energy drink, is my delightful co-host…

DELAYNE: Hi! It’s Delayne! [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: So how hyper are you gonna be for today Delayne?

DELAYNE: I, er, it’s a-, it’s up and down, I don’t-, I don’t know… [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs] Well you just keep like, going on a sugar high and then crashing, just repet-repeatedly, just over and over again - that’s not good for you, you know.

DELAYNE: Oh I am, I am fully aware! [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: [laughs]

DELAYNE: My body is reminding me right now...[laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Ohghhh... [laughs]

DELAYNE: ...why it’s a bad idea to consume…

DARKWICCAN: Yeah

DELAYNE:...all those bad things.

BOTH: Yeah, yeah

DARKWICCAN: uhh, yeah..So maybe after this uhhh, have a bran muffin and a…[laughs]

DELAYNE: So, you’re not recommending uhmm, fast food or uhmm - I-I have plenty of err, jerky and cheese sticks....[laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, we cannot-cannot recommend, cannot recommend. I know you hate to waste food, and I’m not saying to waste it, I’m just saying save it for another day.

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Maybe the day…

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: I don’t think you should even have fruit, you’ve had so much sugar at this point, so-so maybe...yeah just like a-a-a-someth..y’know-like...oats.

BOTH: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Some…

DELAYNE: Just plain oats, nothin’ on ‘em.

DARKWICCAN: Just-just plain oats, yeah, gruel is what we call it, yeah, just-just-err...there you go. 

DELAYNE: [sighs]

DARKWICCAN: [laughs] Wash it down with a cool, clear, crisp glass of water.

BOTH: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: We’ll get ya-we’ll get ya back on the healthy train here.

DELAYNE: Oohhhh…

DARKWICCAN: Umm…[laughs]

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Oh man! So-so before we dive into err, chatting about this week’s story, I kinda have to share a-a fun-fun “question mark”, or at least exciting thing that happened to me this morning.

DELAYNE: Fun “question mark”? [laughs] 

DARKWICCAN: At three in the morning.

DELAYNE: Yeah, that’s… I may have already heard the story, but please! Do tell! This is….bad… [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Soooo.. Three in the morning...First thing you need to understand, I sleep with earplugs in, because I am an extraordinarily light sleeper, uhm, which is good when you have a baby [laughs] because err, you know, you need to get up frequently for them, but I’m ext-I’ve always been a very light sleeper - except when I was a very very young child. And of course when you’re a young child, you sleep like...the dead, you’re just out. Um, but as an adult I’m a light sleeper and so I usually sleep with earplugs, so this is the first thing you need to understand. So, I wake up because I hear a sound, and the sound is “wshhhhh”, and I think that it’s our Cat Genie catbox which is in the ensuite bathroom, uhm, off of the master bedroom. 

So the Cat Genie, if you’re not familiar, is an automated cat box that actually will scoop everything, will-and then will flush it for you, you know, down the toilet or down a waste-water pipe. So you don’t have to touch anything ever, which is fantastic. Err so I’m thinking is the cat draining just running strangely loudly? But y’know I think-that’s what I think it is. Er, my wife also stirs, and like, is kinda right on the edge of awake, and um, but she is also thinking that the sound she’s hearing is like a white noise - ‘cause she has a white noise thing on her phone that she’ll play to help fall asleep, so she thinks it’s just a white noise thing still going on, she doesn’t know it’s three in the morning at this point. Then suddenly, the stairwell light flashes on and off...and we both sit up and we’re like, that was odd… Now for those of you who don’t know, my mother is currently living with us and she’s staying in our guest [ph] ba-guest bedroom downstairs off of the kitchen, so she must have come out of her-her bedroom, and gone to turn on the kitchen light, but by mistake turned on the stairwell light. The stairwell light is right outside of our window - our eu-phht [laughs] right outside of our door. See, I haven’t slept much. Right outside of our door, er, so it flashes in our room, like, really really bright. And um, and then goes off and then we see the kitchen light come on at a distance, a dimmer light because it’s farther away down the stairs. And um, again I still have my earplugs in, but my wife is sitting up and we’re looking at each other and we’re both still kind of stupefied - you know, not quite awake. And then suddenly Jen’s eyes get real big…

DELAYNE: [Laughs] 

DARKWICCAN: ...and she leaps from the bed like an Olympic hurdler, and just leaps from the bed, and-and runs to the stairs, and I hear “thun-thun-thun-thun-thun-thun-thun” as she goes down the stairs. And I am-um, pulling out my earplugs now, and then she comes running up the stairs “du-du-du-du-dun” - “JEN!” And runs back down the stairs, doesn’t say anything else, just says my name, runs back downstairs, I’m like ”brnk” so I get up, and I go down the stairs and I-I tell you, i-it literally took my brain like, fifteen long seconds to comprehend what my eyeballs were seeing…[laughs] It looked like a rainshower had broken out in the middle of the kitchen….

BOTH: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: And then I remembered the sound that woke me up, that “wshhhh” sound. And then I remembered that the bathroom, ensuite bathroom upstairs is directly over the kitchen downstairs. 

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: And I zip back upstairs, and I throw open the bathroom door, and sure enough, the floor is flooded...and I’m trying to find the source of the leak - it’s not coming from the shower, it’s not coming from the toilet -thank goodness- so it can only be coming from the sink. I whip open the doors on the cabinet-sink cabinet, and sure enough, the hot water line has become disconnected and is just spraying water everywhere under the sink. And um...so I, y’know, reach in, I’m getting sprayed in the face, y’know, luckily at this point enough of the hot water tank has been used that it’s not scalding hot water. I managed to turn it off , and er, that stops, y’know, everything. [laughs] And then we spend time mopping everything up, and putting down, y’know every piece of linen that we can find in the house that isn’t being used otherwise, down to soak up all the water that’s everywhere in the kitchen, and the bathroom, and finally...at around 3:45, this whole mess didn’t take too long, we climbed back into bed.

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: And my kid wakes up. [laughs]

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: So, apologies in advance folks, I’m a little brain-dead today. [laughs]

DELAYNE: I-I guess I will take a moment to tell you that I have actually experienced something similar, when I was in my parents’ basement, and the uh, the laundry decided it was gonna back up and….or wait, was that the time when my dad clogged the sink? There was a couple of different times where I woke up-

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: -and water is coming down into the basement, and it’s definitely an experience when you’re asleep, like, what is going on? [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, it was really, like, I-I’ve never had that experience where my brain could not comprehend what my eyes were seeing.

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Where it-it l- it genuinely took, like, like I said, a solid 15 seconds, which is a long time, for your brain to try and understand something. To-fo-for my brain to go “Oh shit! It’s a leak!” 

BOTH: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Like…[laughs] Yeah... so I’m um,yeah, so apologies in advance folks, if this first, er, segment is a little bit, er, all over the place. Ah, because,I’m all over the place, er, with my brain today. Uhh, but the good thing is that this story is all over the place! 

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Sooo…. I probably could have said nothing and would have been fine. 

DELAYNE: [Laughs] The chaos of the world was trying to prepare you for the chaos that is this wonderful fic. [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Oh my gosh it’s so good! It’s so good! The story is “It’s My Wedding and I’ll Cry If I Want To” by RainbowBus, and it is a delightful...delightfully chaotic mish-mash- 

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: -of tropes, and scenarios, and….candy. [Laughs]

DELAYNE: Rand-I was going to say random, but random candy is also true! [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Yes, yes.

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: S-so, essentially, this story started out as a fake wedding, fake marriage au, um, because Waverly needed to earn some money for...school? I-I… something?

DELAYNE: It’s i-it’s reality tv based, so….

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, so it’s a reality tv - fake marriage...thing where they earn, like, what is it, 20,000 bucks, or something-

DELAYNE: 200,000…

DARKWICCAN: -each? Or something like that? 200,000, see, there’s a 2 in there!

BOTH: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: And a thousand! I got- [Laughs}

DELAYNE: You were close…like, I understand.

DARKWICCAN: I was-I was only, I was only, I was only one zero off, dammit.

BOTH: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Uh, so, yeah...uh-er-um and so they, basically, Waverly and Nicole have agreed to, to take on this fake relationship for the sake of this reality show, for the purpose of winning this money. Um, there’s just one problem - they can’t stand each other. [sighs] That’s right folks, it’s also an “enemies to lovers” au!

DELAYNE: [Laughs] Uh, which definitely creates, uh, an interesting start, because according to this tv show, they are in love and totally planning to be married...and that’s what they have to portray on tv! But, reality is, uh, waverly is constantly irritated by Nicole, even if she maybe doesn’t want to admit that she’s kind of attracted to her. But, she’s annoying, and that-her attractiveness is also annoying. [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Yes. Yeah. And this Nicole is really unlike any Nicole I’ve ever seen, uh, where traditionally Nicole is portrayed as being the, sort of, very even-keel, steady, mature, uh, mature adult-type character who is, you know very, uh, rule-following, law-abiding….even if she’s not playing a cop, even if she’s playing a criminal, she’s typically still like, she’s a good criminal.

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Right?

DELAYNE: She has a set of rules, when she’s a criminal, yeah.

DARKWICCAN: Uh, she has a moral code, right? Yeah. And I’m not saying this Nicole doesn’t have a moral code [laughs] but pretty much her moral code revolves around her own well-being and watch-setting fire to things and watching them burn.

DELAYNE: [Laughs] 

DARKWICCAN: They’re metaphorical fires, not literal fires, she’s not a pyromaniac, but like, she loves to-to find people’s buttons and push, push, push on them.

DELAYNE: She’s pretty good at it! [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: She’s very good at it, very good at it. She’s really, she’s, uh, she’s essentially kind of a-a teenager, but an adult.

DELAYNE: Yeah

DARKWICCAN: Like, yeah.

DELAYNE: Oh yeah, definitely…..

DARKWICCAN: Umm…

DELAYNE: Just, uh, sh-she, she is an adult-child. [Laughs] adult moderately mature-

DARKWICCAN: Yes absolutely

DELAYNE:-but adult as in that, just, her age, she’s-she’s o-officially passed into adulthood. Ummm, but, yeah, she’s definitely not...not embraced adulthood….uhh, like some people do [Laughs] She refuses to give up the child…-

DARKWICCAN: Yeah.

DELAYNE:-uh, she’s definitely not embraced adulthood, she has refused to give up the child within…

.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, definitely.

DELAYNE:-and the child also loves candy. [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Oh, so much candy. SO much candy! And, I-uh like, she’s got it hidden everywhere, and it feels like, it feels like her favourites are Skittles. It seems like that’s what she most often has a handful of. Um…

DELAYNE: That seems appropriate….[laughs]

DARKWICCAN: I was wai-I was waiting to see if you were like, “Actually…”

DELAYNE: Taste the rainbowww! [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, uh hmm, uh hmm...Uh, and-and the Waverly in this story is very….I don’t know if I wanna say controlling, but she is definitely orderly, like she...yeah I guess [muffled] worse, but I don’t-I don’t…

DELAYNE: [Laughs] It’s hard to find a word when, uh, a nice word for people who are very particular…

DARKWICCAN: Very particular, and er-yeah, and-an-and she’s just frustrated no end by, um, Nicole’s behaviour. Er, you know, not just the constant consumption of candy, but also she just lives a very dangerous, uh, lifestyle in her career choice and now she’s a bike messenger and-and Waverly doesn’t see this as a long term-type solution as far as careers go-

DELAYNE: [Laughing]

DARKWICCAN: -because it’s extremely dangerous and, you know, it’s kind of a young person’s game, because you have to be in peak physical condition, all the time. Uh, so how eating, just handful and handful an-full of candy over, you know, basically just gob-fulls of candy hand-over-fist, er, constantly everyday, and Monster energy drinks-

DELAYNE: And ridiculous amounts of Monster energy drinks, ok I have had my own issue [laughs] with Monster energy drinks, um, but I generally follow the guidelines of not consuming, uh definitely, I-it’s rarely if I ever get to 2 in a day, but you never want to drink over 3...and you definitely need to space them out, that’s like, a guideline. And here, Nicole is just chugging ‘em like…..er...er…..a healthy person chugs their water bottle. I mean it’s just absolutely ridiculous. And it’s great, there’s always one flavour, gotta be the one flavour.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, just the one, yeah. She definitely is loyal to her...sweets, I guess?

DELAYNE: I do like the consistent breakfast [laughs] 

DARKWICCAN: Yes, it’s a blueberry scone and a Monster energy drink, right? 

DELAYNE: Was it blueberry or lemon?

DARKWICCAN: Oh, maybe it’s lemon...

DELAYNE: [Laughs] think it’s a lemon scone.

DARKWICCAN: Think it’s lemon? Ok, I think you’re probably right, probably right. Umm, but, yeah, this-this NIcole is just absolute chaos, I mean...

DELAYNE: [Laughs] It’s really-that’s just, like, an understatement, like, we cannot….

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: ...emphasise how much this, it’s just kinda all over the place, but that’s... 

DARKWICCAN: But so much fun.

DELAYNE: Yeah, that’s what makes it fun. It’s-it’s a joy to read.

DARKWICCAN: Because you-because it’s like, not right, yeah it’s-it’s like not only do you have Nicole causing chaos, you also have the reality tv show producers, purposefully causing chaos to create, you know, “drama” on-on the show, and-er, so there’s that going on. And on top of all of that, you also have Nicole’s past, and we find out that one of the reasons why Waverly doesn’t like Nicole very much is because Nicole had a falling out with her sister Wynonna, and um, they have some bad blood between them, in the past, and there’s a reason why - and that reason is coming to...play? Er, I guess “play” is not the right word, but it’s-it’s definitely wreaking their own-wreaking its own havoc on their lives.

DELAYNE: Yeah.

DARKWICCAN: Uh, while all this other business is going on, so I mean there’s just so much happening in this fic, uhh…[laughs] I never, every chapter’s a surprise - I have no idea what’s going to happen [laughs] - 

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: -from chapter to chapter, I have no-no clue - none.

DELAYNE: There will be no predictions as to where this fic is heading - none.

DARKWICCAN: Nope. To give you guys an idea, it’s 10 chapters in, already over 131,000 words, so we’ve already got a solid, like, Harry Potter length, or even like, Tolkien length, um, novel here. Er, and it’s not even remotely close-

BOTH: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: to any kind of a discernible halfway point that I can see.

BOTH: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Uh, uh, but yeah it’s just a-joy-joyful chaos the entire time. Oh but I tell you what, if-if I was Waverly, um, I would be on the verge of a panic attack like all the time, because my anxiety would be...Because I’m actually, as you know, Delayne, I’m a pretty chill person, but when I get in the presence of someone who is truly chaotic, my anxiety will actually make an appearance. It’ll like, walk in the door and go “Hello, long time no see, I’m just here to make you as uncomfortable as possible, and uh, cause your heart rate to spike up while this person who you have no control over whatsoever is making your life a living hell.” So, I mean, if….

DELAYNE: [Laughs]I-is it too much telling that I identify with this fic maybe just a little much? [laughs] More than I would like to admit?

DARKWICCAN: Wait, as-as Nicole or as Waverly?

DELAYNE: As Waverly - with my wife in Nicole…

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: Yeah, so I know I’m the one talking about eating all the candy, and er, drinking all the Monster-

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: -I generally like to know what’s going on, and my wife is definitely more of a “go with the flow, let’s see where this goes” and it, umm, yeah it’s a period of adjustments, so watching Waverly go through, umm, you know, especially at first she’s like “no, like I need-I need a plan, I need to know what’s going on” and then, you know, as she slowly becomes more open, to fun I guess...or as their-

DARKWICCAN: Connection, yeah.

DELAYNE: -especially as their connection grows, they-y’know, it’s-it becomes a balance, and...

DARKWICCAN: Yes

DELAYNE: Yeah, so that’s what I identify with, and I enjoy in this fic, I mean it is just all over the place, I ca-I can’t even...I have no words! [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Ww-I mean… We’ve go-we’ve got the...we’ve got the reality tv show element, we’ve got the fake relationship element, we’ve got the enemies to lover element, we’ve got...umm, Nicole’s dark past, y’know, trope element - which I think that is a trope, because we see that pop up a lot in fics, so I’m-I’m counting it as , like, “a character has a dark past” that’s y’know, too tropey

DELAYNE: [Laughs] Right! And of course it’s slowly bl-being revealed, it’s not, y’know, all at once, you gotta put the puzzle pieces together.

DARKWICCAN: Right, exactly, an-and we’ve also, er, got within the reality tv show, we have these producers who are constantly trying to throw different, um, y’know, scenarios at, er, the pair of Nicole and Waverly, that they have to then deal with, y’know-

DELAYNE: Right, ‘cause-

DARKWICCAN: -either go along with or-or try to find a way to outsmart or....Yeah, it’s just, it’s just a constant, constant, constant, and of course Nicole of course relishing throwing things into chaos at each-any opportunity she gets. 

DELAYNE: [Laughs] Right, ‘cause they wanted drama, and so they were encouraging the drama, and then Nicole is like “Oh you want drama do you...?” [Laughs] “I’ll give you drama!” and then of course they’re pissed off because they’re like “You need to do what we tell you!” [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: And she’s like, “But you wanted drama..

DELAYNE: “What more do you want?!”

BOTH: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Yeah

DELAYNE: Yeah, definitely some great scenes in this fic, where, like you said, Nicole is just kinda setting little fires and watching stuff burn-

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: -sit back, ok let’s see where this goes [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Yes. Yeah, uh, it’s just, an-a-and the, and, and, I know Delayne, you particularly enjoy the chapter titles to this-

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: -this fic..

DELAYNE: Well, you know I-I...you mentioned Skittles, and I had to mention “Taste the rainbow”, ‘cause [laughs] that is a great….fic chapter title. I-I will say, to, y’know, to each author their own, but I enjoy it when chapters have titles - it’s easier for me to follow along and keep track, I guess? Well, especially for the podcast, ‘cause I can, I can sort of, uh, I don’t have to make as many notes, I can just pretty much have some chapter titles and I’m usually-my brain is better at connecting what happened in each chapter if I have more than just 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. So I appreciate chapter titles normally, even though I’m terrible at creating titles for anything. Um, and these ones are just great, this candy theme, I-is just like this whole other level. [laughs] 

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, yeah. It is definitely….really, I mean, like, th-the titling it’s not just like, um, popular candy brand [laughs] brand titles, it’s basically, uh, taking, uh, y’know either um, slogans, or uh, y’know, mixing up um, a pun of a candy y’know into, like “Jagged Little Pez”-

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: -uh, which, it’s just great - “Jagged Little Pez” - it’s just brilliant and I want someone to write a parody album of Jagged Little Pill, but have it all be candy, umm…

DELAYNE: [Laughs] Yes

DARKWICCAN: Yes. “Isn’t it white chocolate, don’t you think”

BOTH: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: Oh, that is-that’s one of, that is my favourite, uhh, chapter titles so far, ‘cause this is not, uh, as you said, it’s 10 chapters where-we don’t know where it’s going, it’s-it’s not complete. So I can-

DARKWICCAN: Nope

DELAYNE: -I can only say that as of thus far, Jagged Little Pez is my favourite.

BOTH: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: Who knows what’s to come!

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, who knows, yeah. I would say Jagged Little Pez and How Many Licks Does It Take- 

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: -those are my…

DELAYNE: I-I feel like this is a-is-is this a good time to-to spark the debate in the fandom, of um, Team Blowpop and Team Tootsiepop? [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Oohhhh….I don’t know man, those are some dangerous waters. I don’t know, but I don’t wanna tread there.

DELAYNE: [Laughs] It’s just, it’s the, um, the-Nicole’s chocolate aversion [laughs] and yet she eats Tootsie pops [laughs] that scene...ahhh that’s so hilarious.

BOTH: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: If you-if you like-if you want to know what Delayne is talking about, please do be sure to check out “It’s My Wedding and I’ll Cry If I Want To” by RainbowBus!

BOTH: [Laugh]

DELAYNE: Umm…I used to collect Pez [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs] I-I have-I’m looking at my collection of, of um, Muppets Pez, right next to my desk, as-as we chat. All unopened.

DELAYNE: Ahh, I have a set of Tom and Jerry that came all the way from Germany - the package was in German.

DARKWICCAN: Ooh, Tom und Jerry? Ja?

DELAYNE: [Laughs] Have no idea, where any of them are [laughs] so they’re probably not in quality condition any more. [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs] Um, but, uh, ju-jumping, er chaotically back to the story…

DELAYNE: [Laughs] You’re right! We are all over the place!

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs] 

DELAYNE: I think I need more candy [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Oh jeez [laughs] don’t make me Waverly on you!

BOTH: [Laugh]

DELAYNE: Are you going to dump my Skittles down the broken garbage disposal? [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Listen, don’t make me come over there! We’re supposed to be socially isolating 

BOTH: [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN: Uh, ok, so why don’t we, uh, expand our-our social isolation to an isolation of 2 to an isolation of 3, and move on to our interview with RainbowBus so we can sort of talk intelligently ‘cause some-sort-somewhat about this fic with the-with them. [Laughs]

DELAYNE: We can try! 

DARKWICCAN: Maybe, we’ll see, we’ll try! I don’t know what’s gonna happen next, um..but er, yeah, uh-l-let’s-er… as usual we are of course interviewing the author of the story we discussed, so… I don’t know, did we discuss it? Or just more like word vomit. I don’t know, what with all this candy we’re consuming, um-could be either

DELAYNE: It’s like playing Scrabble with um… with Skittles and M&M’s, so the only thing…[laughs]

DARKWICCAN:Yes, yes excellent description, yes - it’s all S & M - heyo, that’s another episode! Okay! Anyway…

DELAYNE: [Laughs] Oh woah I…. 

DARKWICCAN: Let’s move along! [Laughs]

DELAYNE: Shout out to the chapter title called “Sex and Candy” [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: There you go, uhh…[laughs] Oh man, now I feel like I need to make a Mounds joke, anyway....

BOTH: [Laughs]

[CONTENT CENSORED. PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT]

MUSIC: I Want Candy by The Strangeloves

DARKWICCAN: And welcome back everybody to the Earp Fiction Addiction, the podcast dedicated entirely to Wynonna Earp fanfiction. I am your host Darkwiccan and with me, rapidly scarfing down an entire box of Jujubes is my delightful co-host…

DELAYNE: [Laughs] Uh-hmm...hi it’s Delayne! [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs] Wow you swallow those whole??

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: You need to be careful friend!

DELAYNE: I had to get those finished so I could break into my big bag of, uh, gummy worms - sour gummy worms, so… [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Ok...Alright well that’s fair. I’ve got-I’ve got my-I’ve got my little package of Scooby Doo gelatine snacks here, so I am also-

DELAYNE: [Laughs] 

DARKWICCAN: -yeah. An-and joining us for this segment, hopefully with their own giant bag of candy, and a whole bunch of Monster energy drinks, is the author RainbowBus who we’re gonna call, I don’t know, Bow today. So Bow, welcome to the show!!

RAINBOWBUS: [Laughs] Hello!

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Thank you for joining us! 

RAINBOWBUS: [Laughs] Uhh-

DELAYNE: [Laughs] I’m-I’m sorry, I’m picturing SheRa now [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs] 

DELAYNE: So Bow, Rainbow, are you showing off your midriff?

RAINBOWBUS: Uhh not today 

DELAYNE: Oh ok [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs] wear the full length-the full length, err, tank top today, ok cool. Cool cool cool. Err, so…[Laughs] So, how-a-are you enjoying any candy this morning? Or are you putting that off till later today? Or…

RAINBOWBUS: Uhh… probably later today, more of a chocolate person than a fruity person-

DARKWICCAN: Ah okk

RAINBOWBUS: -as well, so. 

DARKWICCAN: Ok, noted, noted. Noted that RainbowBus is not a fruity person

ALL: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: Sorry...

DARKWICCAN: So…[laughs] what…[laughs] uh, sorry we’re a little hyper - all the sugar we’ve been consuming this morning. Bow, I hope that’s ok with you, err….[laughs] And frankly, I blame you, because this story is just packed full of sugary, sugary, sugary treats like, left right and centre. Hidden here and there in-in bits of furniture an-and probably ceiling tiles, I mean there’s just so much candy in this story! [Laughs] 

RAINBOWBUS: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: So, let’s talk about you, and what a fantastic author you are. Um, you are, I was saying to you before I started recording, you’re a bit of an enigma in the, um, in the writing world, in that everyone knows who you are, but no-one knows who you are. So I’m really excited to be able to chat with you today, uh, a-and learn a little bit more about the RainbowBus. 

RAINBOWBUS: Alright, what do you wanna know?

DARKWICCAN: What is your favourite colour? 

DELAYNE: [Laughs] 

RAINBOWBUS: Oh, it changes on a daily basis I think. Um, I’d say red today.

DARKWICCAN: Red! Oh ok. Wha-a-anything in particular inspiring about the-the cardinal shade? 

RAINBOWBUS: Umm, I don’t know, I just have a lot of red in my vision right now.

DARKWICCAN: Ok

DELAYNE and DARKWICCAN: [Laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: Like red-

DARKWICCAN: So is your favourite colour just whatever you see the most of?

RAINBOWBUS: Maybe, which is odd, because my room is actually decorated in blue, so I don’t know what’s happening.

DARKWICCAN: Oh, ok. Nice, nice. Uh, when did you start writing fic? 

RAINBOWBUS: Uhm, I think I started writing two-ish years ago, uhm, when I started writing “I Failed College”. Uhm, but yeah I started, uh, I was waiting for my favourite fic to update and it was taking a little bit of time, so I-uhm was like, I’ll just write my own fic. And uhm, then I began with “I Failed College”.

DARKWICCAN: That’s great! That’s fantastic! Uh, I love that your impatience is what turned you into an author [laughs].

RAINBOWBUS: [Laughs] I’m very impatient

DARKWICCAN: so, you’ve really only written four Wynonna Earp, you’ve written like three-three stories for Wynonna Earp so far. 

RAINBOWBUS: Yes, just Wynonna Earp. 

DARKWICCAN: Mkay, no-no other shows have ever inspired you to put, err, fingertip to keyboard? 

RAINBOWBUS: No, I just, I really like the Wynonna Earp characters, uhm, I think they-I don’t know, I don’t, I mean, they’re relatable, but I just feel more connected to them, like I can sit there and analyse them while I’m watching the show, uhm, in a way that I don’t really do with other shows. So, I wouldn’t even know how to write other characters. 

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs] And you are so unique in your approach to writing these characters as well, and I think that’s part of what’s made you such a popular author despite having only a couple of stories up on the board so far. But again, they-they’re such high quality and so unique, like you’re, like seriously, I’m gonna-I-ho-hold on I’m going to pull up the source so I can stop saying “unique” or…[laughs] One of a kind! There we go, uh, but yeah, no you’re-

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs] The way that you have, especially in-in the story we’re talking about today - “It’s My Wedding and I’ll Cry If I Want To” - th-the way that you have approached, uh, the characters is truly unlike any other author that-that I’ve read- 

RAINBOWBUS and DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: -and in the most, just joyful and delightful way, and chaotic way as well. [Laughs] Um, so-so speaking of chaos- 

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Um, let’s get-let’s get down to “bidness” here. Okay, so you’ve written a Nicole who has a ton of issues [laughs] like, she is the most chaotic version of this character I have ever seen. It’s like you were working on, like, a D&D character chart-

RAINBOWBUS and DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: -and just rolled up, like, chaotic good, and just went...went for it. Um [laughs] uh, what in the canon character of Nicole inspired you to take her this-this direction?

RAINBOWBUS: Um...well first of all, if you mean chaotic, you mean perfect, because she is perfect…

ALL: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: I didn’t say she wasn’t, I didn’t say she wasn’t…

RAINBOWBUS: Perfect in every way. Um, no I, so I really liked, um, that in canon Nicole, that there was that whole connection to, um, the Cult of Bulshar and the massacre, but to me that felt a little bit kinda...swept under the rug, like she definitely had some PTSD from the experience and...but it didn’t like, in the show as a whole, play too much of a significant role that she was there during that, um, massacre, and I felt like there was, like, some opportunity missed, um, maybe that will show up later. But, um, so I thought it would be interesting to build off of that and instead of Nicole getting away from the massacre, have her actually be more indoctrinated into the cult, um, and have a stronger connection to Bulshar, um, and she could still be a victim of circumstance, uh, because she is in “Wedding”, um, but it’s definitely… something that continues to influence and affect her life and her relationships and is more dangerous. I mean, being owned and controlled by a nearly untouchable crime-boss seems pretty dangerous, um, and very complicated. 

DARKWICCAN: Yes…

DELAYNE: [Laughs] Indeed. 

DARKWICCAN: Indeed, both of those things. 

DELAYNE: Sorr-whe-when our guests are so... well spoken, I’m just thrown [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: It totally throws Delayne off, yeah, it totally throws her off.

DELAYNE: [Laughs] Um, so… it sounds like this, this connection to Clootie was something i-important that you-you did want to explore, um, when it first started out though it seemed like just a bunch of… uh, tropes- you had enemies to lovers, you had this fake marriage and this reality tv, um, and when there’s a bunch, I-I often wonder what was the main inspiration. Um, so which trope did you most want to explore? 

RAINBOWBUS: Um, which one did I most want to explore… Initially it was the fake wedding, um, kinda tv show portion of it, um, but I think the “enemies to lovers” was my favourite, I think in general and in all fics. I like, like, even them having the slightest aversion to each other is, weirdly exciting…

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: [Laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: But I really enjoy the way it makes characters challenge each other and this wedding and Nicole really challenge each other. Um, I like their bickering, I personally laugh at myself when I’m writing their bickering, hopefully other people laugh too, I don’t know. But, um, they’ve also had to be forced to accept the most irritating parts of each other, which I think is one of the most interesting parts of “enemies to lovers” because, I mean, especially in this one where they’re forced to be together, um, they would-I think if they didn’t learn to accept each other in some way it’d be extra miserable. Um, and like, this Waverly is the bossiest person in Purgatory that ever lived, and…

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: [Laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: Nicole is, like, the least likely person to follow someone else’s directions, but she gradually has started accepting Waverly’s demands, um, and maybe she views it as, like, her-Waverly obsessing over her health, and like, wearing helmets, and this and that, as some kind of form of Waverly-affection, because Waverly does not verbally express very much. Um, but I just think that in general having those conflicting personalities, and like, and “enemies to lovers” fic, um, it’s interesting to watch how their eyes open to something different.

DARKWICCAN: Why make Nicole a bike messenger, and not a...yeah. 

RAINBOWBUS: Uh, bike messengers are really cool, ask Lucky. She’s told me so much about bike messengers, you should watch some YouTube videos, they’re cool.

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs] No, I mean the-th-the only-the only experience I have with like, do-documentation of a bike messenger is Puck from MTV’s “The Real World” in the 90s, and he was a… he was a…

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: A dick, so like... 

DELAYNE: [Laughs] He was, he was more punk than Puck. Uh yeah, I actually have seen stuff about bike messengers because uh, my wife thinks that’s really cool and would love to do something like that. And that of course scares the shit out of me. 

RAINBOWBUS: It’s terrifying!

DARKWICCAN: Yeah... yeah, yeah. Delayne, strap her down to something, don’t let her do that 

ALL: [Laughs] 

DARKWICCAN: Um, so-so, uh, Delayne touched on this a little bit with her question, um, in-in the tropey-what trope did you want to focus on, but um, I’m gonna kinda angle off of her question a little bit here with my own, in that you’re juggling several storylines at once in this, uh… so assuming the thread of plot that you came up with first was the-the fake wedding, um, how did that spawn the other story ideas as you went forward? 

RAINBOWBUS: Well, um, interestingly enough, the original wedding fic was, um, so it was inspired by this tv show called “Unreal”, um, that’s on Hulu, and I really enjoyed how much chaos, and like, just like, trash fires everywhere that the producers would just create for their, I don’t know what you would call them, their subjects. Um, but the original fic was Waverly and Nicole were actually lifelong best friends and it was entirely from Nicole’s perspective, but as I played around with it it became completely more interesting to make them more like lifelong enemies, um, and then put it through a very dramatic Waverly’s perspective. But, um, so that’s kind of the foundation that brings Wayhaught together… the Bulshar storyline was actually, I know like I said, I wanted to explore it, and that’s totally true, but it was originally very small, um, like it’s not something that created such a big impact on the story itself, but… i-it, um, and it’s really challenging to, because it’s so complicated I have like, a whiteboard that I have drawn this like, web out, of all these components to the Bulshar storyline and it’s been challenging to decide when, um, and how to reveal the different pieces in a way that doesn’t compete with all of the other storylines but is still present, uh, as like a good portion of Nicole’s backstory. Um, other than those two, the smaller little storylines that kinda accidentally happen like pregnancies, um, they come from Jolene and Dr. Svane, and I put them there specifically to be my, like, and Eliza, but to be like my little chaotic producers and create different things for me as we go. Um, and some of them stick longer than others, like again pregnancy, and other ones just kind of fizzle out quickly, which is also fine because it is really hard to juggle so many things at once. I have so many notes, it’s also chaos. 

DELAYNE: [Laughs] So appropriate! [Laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: Yeah. 

DARKWICCAN: So-I-I…[Laughs] I’m just picturing the sort of, like, um, you know the meme photo from “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia”? [laughs] With the guy sta-standing in front of his, like, uh you know, crime-web-chart thing?

ALL: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: -crazed look, it’s sort of how I’m picturing you [laughs].

RAINBOWBUS: That is exactly right.

ALL: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Uh, what made you decide to make Nicole so...childish?

RAINBOWBUS: Well...um, so, to add to the original idea of the, um, wedding where they were actually friends, there was like this side fic that I had wrote where Nicole was this, basically it was this Nicole, but she was in high school. And she was really obnoxious, and I decided to just take that high school personality, give her some adult problems and put her in this fic.

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs] I got ninety-nine problems, and maturity ain’t one.

  
  


RAINBOWBUS and DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: Umm....

DARKWICCAN: Title for your next story, ok go.

RAINBOWBUS and DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: Um...yeah, that’s-that’s an interesting...start to how Nicole got into this fic. I-I’m curious which one of the side characters was your favourite to put in?

RAINBOWBUS: Eliza is definitely my favourite side character, uh, I wish she had lasted longer on the show, because I think she was really cool and sassy, and I loved her attitude - she was kinda cocky, and generally...gave a crap...um, but... 

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: Um, but so I really like her in this because she’s, like, I’m not great at portraying her with very little information, I’m not confident in that, but I like the version of her in the fic because she still is, um, really confident and sassy, uh, but I really like her and Nicole’s interactions. Nicole really likes getting a rise out of people, and like, poking people’s buttons, and she’s really good at finding which buttons to push, and kinda just likes to start little fires and like, sit back and watch them burn up. Um, but I like her interactions with Eliza because Eliza doesn’t, like, accept that - she’s ready to throw down, she’s not going to take anyone’s carp, she’s gonna, um, fight back, um, and she’s gotten increasingly more agitated as the show goes on. 

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: But I think probably it’s really stressful to manage people like Waverly and Nicole, on this show, who-and she’s trying to control their image into something positive, but they don’t listen to her and they’re also creating these chaos and drama around them that she has to, like, go around and tidy up...um, but as she’s gotten more agitated, Nicole, who is satisfied by that, becomes more rebellious to push her more, and then the best part is like, Waverly, who’s starting to try to let go of things and be more f-free-ish, let’s put the -ish there. 

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: [Laughs] 

RAINBOWBUS: Um, she is becoming more rebellious too as she becomes confident, um, but yeah I think just her trying to control the uncontrollable is very entertaining. 

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs] It is very, very entertaining, yes. [Laughs] Uh, so one major character trait of Nicole’s that we ah-j-made fun of at the start of this recording, uh, is that she has got, uh, probably the sweetest sweet tooth- 

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: -of anyone in existence. 

RAINBOWBUS: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Where she is constantly eating sugary candies, drinking Monster energy drinks, uhm, just-just the amount of sugar that she consumes, and caffeine that she consumes is ungodly. So, how is Nicole not pre-diabetic at this point? 

RAINBOWBUS and DELAYNE: [Laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: Um, I think she’s probably part alien who’s ninety percent made out of sugar, um, no. No I think she probably just eats-

ALL: [Laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: -so much candy, like, I think maybe it’s a coping mecham-mechanism in her life, it’s her addiction that, we’ll say that she started when she was, you know, kidnapped into a cult...um and I think she was eating so much sugar at this point that if she were to stop and eat healthier snacks like Waverly would prefer, she would just go onto shock and die. That’s my thought. 

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Wow! [Laughs] I-er-mean, she has to be a bike messenger really, just for the exercise, too.

RAINBOWBUS: [Laughs] Yeah

ALL: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: Ok, I…

DARKWICCAN: How does she still have all her teeth?

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: I don’t know! Goes to the dentist a lot I guess?

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Wow okay, points for-points for self care

ALL: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: Eats a lot of candy and then swishes the-uh...the fluoride…

RAINBOWBUS: [Laughs] Exactly...Exactly.

DELAYNE: I, I actually know some people in my life, that have had a very similar diet [laughs] of candy and soda - Monsters are definitely worse, but I myself had a caffeine-lack of caffeine headache yesterday, because last week I had too many Monsters [laughs] 

RAINBOWBUS: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: Um, anyway, but...yeah it’s, uh, transitioning of off eating that much-it’s weird how a body can like, adjust to that sort of junk, and it does-it’s not something that you can kinda cold turkey on, and cut off, so-but hopefully, hopefully we’ll see her wean back a little more, maybe-maybe some positive influence from Waverly, ‘cause really, that much candy is so bad!

ALL: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: It’s a really good thing that they’re-they aren’t bringing a child into the world, because-

DELAYNE and RAINBOWBUS: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: -then-then-then Waverly would have two kids to have to keep an eye on, um…

DELAYNE and RAINBOWBUS: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: No kidding! Oh dear.

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: [Laughs] Ok well, you know what, so the-the candy theme is hilarious, and I am really enjoying the chapter titles [laughs] with this candy theme, so please, elaborate on the candy theme.

RAINBOWBUS: Um, I’m glad somebody noticed because I personally feel satisfied by these chapter titles. Um, I think...so I like to, I’m sure a lot of people are like this, I like to pick my title before writing the chapter or when I have maybe a couple major plot points for the chapter and it sets the...the theme for me, um, or like, the mood. Um, but I know this is a Wayhaught fic, but sometimes it feels like the Nicole Show and she’s got a really strong presence, at least definitely in Waverly’s eyes, and Waverly’s telling the story, um, and Waverly’s the one noti-noting all these candies, um, but even if Nicole’s not eating candy Waverly will bring up that there is licorice on the couch, or there’s like, Skittles in the broken garbage disposal, or like...even just in her internal dialogue she’ll reference something about Nicole ea-being sugary or being a sour-patch wife, or whatever it is.

DELAYNE: [Laughs] The uh, the “sugarbear...or should I call you sugardaddy?” [Laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: Exactly! [Laughs] Everything is candy/sweets related, so um, that kinda just snowballed into something else, but it is a lot of fun to pick, like, the chapter, um, title, and just like sit there and be like “what candy would really describe this mood” or like candy slogans too - I’ve definitely watched a lot of nineties, um, candy commercials-

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: [Laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: -and slogans, and some of them are really dirty and I look forward to using them. 

DELAYNE: [Laughs] Yess! So far my favourite is “Jagged Little Pez”....

DARKWICCAN: Yes

DELAYNE: We have a mix there, you know, some-some music… [Laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: Yeah

DARKWICCAN: Yes, yes. That’s one of my favourite titles as well, um, I like that one and of course “How Many Licks Does It Take”.

ALL: [Laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: Yes, I like that one too. Somebody posted that, like when I first started writing, somebody posted, who was it... they posted a t-shirt of it, and I was like “that’s an excellent chapter title, don’t mind if I steal that”, and then I did.

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs] Excellent. You-you didn’t steal it, you just sort of appropriated it for you-your own use. 

RAINBOWBUS: Oh thank you, I feel less bad now.

DELAYNE: [Laughs] 

DARKWICCAN: Mhmm, yeah. Here...here to help.

DELAYNE: [Laughs] I uhh,um...oh shit my thought just went away...um...shit [laughs] I had something really funny I was going to say guys! [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: We believe you. Yeah.

DELAYNE: Nevermind.

ALL: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: So-so you’ve talked about how, er, Eliza and um, Bobo and er, Julian are there to sort of manufacture chaos for the-for the reality tv show-

RAINBOWBUS: Mhmm

DARKWICCAN: -um, what in reality is-is prompting these sort of chaotic tangents that er, that you throw at your characters? Is it that-because when the, um, the pregnancy ca-storyline came up, there were a lot of pregnancy au’s happening on AO3 at that time, so I was like “oh, oh are they riffing [laughs] 

RAINBOWBUS: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: -on-on the trends i-in-y’know that’s happening within-these little trends that happen within the fic community, uh so, yeah wha-what’s inspiring these little sidetrips?

RAINBOWBUS: Umm, they just kinda happen, like with Jolene and the pregnancy, like I-in canon Jolene I like the way like she’ll just like make these tiny little like nudgy jabs that makes one character like snap at the other character or whatever - I really like her just like manipulation, and so I, I just kind of picture her, like having whatever, I don’t know she has like, has spies or something that gather this information. Um, but just like, being able to take the information she knows and then pit the two of them against each other I think makes it really easy to create drama, but I figured it would be, it would be... um, it would make sense that if Waverly with her cat allergies had to go to the grocery store and she’s under so much stress that these two boxes seem to be so close, and for some reason she’s ill, um, it would be really funny if Jolene was, like, the one to be like “oh yeah, you’re definitely pregnant aren’t you?” and then that just feeds into her brain and then she’s just like “oh shit”.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah

RAINBOWBUS: Yeah, just like stuff like that. Just like, as I’m writing it just, I don’t know, it just kinda happens.

DELAYNE: [Laughs] So-so it’s good for you when Jolene is whispering in your ear, apparently [laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: Yes, and then like, Dr Svane comes up and he’s like “so you did this stupid thing, now I’m going to ask you to do this other stupid thing to make that stupid thing funnier, I mean better”.

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Sorry… l-little, little-ah, little slip of, little slip of the truth there, yeah. [Laughs] 

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: Uh yes, Dr Svane in an interesting character, and I love all the little, like, notes about the books and stuff that he has in his office.

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: Yes

DELAYNE: Very-very telling, I love it.

RAINBOWBUS: Yeah, I figure he’s probably not, like… he’s like probably a licensed therapist who lost his license for being, um, a psychopath and then just wants to know how to be the worst therapist ever, so he buys all of these like, like unethical human experien-experiment books so that he can just wreak havoc on the show. 

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: That’s-ye-yeah-yup

DELAYNE: Seems on brand. [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Yup

DELAYNE: Let’s fuck with people, why not?

ALL: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: This entire story is just like...I-I love the fact that I’ve got literally no idea what is going to happen next-

RAINBOWBUS and DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: -like…[laughs] um, yeah, like [laughs] liter-like-I genuinely go into every chapter going “no clue” 

ALL: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: I-I-as I had, er, mentioned to DW, um I guess before we started recording, before you joined us, er, ma’am this is a wild ride [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: It’s like riding a roller-coaster in the dark.

DELAYNE: [Laughs] Splash Mountain? No wait, sorry, uh…

DARKWICCAN: Space Mountain you mean? [laughs]

DELAYNE: Space Mountain! Shit!

DARKWICCAN: Yep, yeah it-y’know-ok so s-super quick DW related tangent, apologies in advance. WHen I was a kid, riding Space Mountain, I thought the asteroids were chocolate chip cookies, because that’s what they looked like to me - they look like giant space cookies.

ALL: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: That seems appropriate for this one! [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Exactly my point! [Laughs] It’s like riding Space Mountain in the dark, with Nicole, and Nicole is trying to leap out of the-out of the train car to grab the space cookies! [Laughs] 

RAINBOWBUS: [Laughs] She probably would.

DARKWICCAN: She probably would.

RAINBOWBUS: Die for her sweets.

DELAYNE: That’s definitely a mental image that is just fantastic. [Laughs] 

DARKWICCAN: Yes it is. [Laughs] Uh... oh gosh. Bow this has been so much fun! Oh my gosh, you wouldn’t-yeah I mean, we haven’t actually been eating candy, sorry spoilers everybody [laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Let you into industry trade secrets here-

DELAYNE: Says you!

DARKWICCAN: -it’s called theatre

DELAYNE: I have heartburn now thank you very much [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Oh you do?

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Wow, method! Very method Delayne!

DELAYNE: It-the gummy worms were on sale, I could not, not...you know

DARKWICCAN: [Laughs] That is so something that Nicole would say to Waverly! [laughs] But I feel like-

DELAYNE: But I have cut back on the Monsters, no Monsters this weekend so far. I’m proud of myself.

DARKWICCAN: Ok good. Good good good. Yeah. Hadn’t we weaned you off of the energy drinks completely at some point a while back? 

DELAYNE: Uh yeah, it comes and goes in waves [laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Much like Nicole, anyway! 

DELAYNE and RAINBOWBUS: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Well I haven’t actually been consuming candy, but I feel like I have been [laughs] This has been a delightful sugar rush of a conversation- [laughs] 

DELAYNE: Indeed.

DARKWICCAN: -but unfortunately, as all sugar rushes must, we are now crashing into-toward the end of this uh [laughs] this-uh interview, so we do have one final question to ask of you, uh, RainbowBus. 

RAINBOWBUS: Mhmm…

DARKWICCAN: Delayne? Would you like to ask the question? [Laughs]

DELAYNE: [Laughs] Sorry, I crashed.

RAINBOWBUS: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Ok, you just…

DELAYNE: [Laughs] Alright! You’re stranded on a desert island and can have only one fic to read. What is it? 

RAINBOWBUS: Um, that would be “Three Thousand Miles, Two I Love You's, One Last Goodbye” by Em McConachie, is that how you say her last name? McConaghie..?

DARKWICCAN: Yes, McConachie, yes, nice!

RAINBOWBUS: Yes, I said it right. Um yeah, so that’s my absolute favourite, it’s the second fic I ever read and it is the one that I was waiting for before I started writing.

ALL: [Laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: I hope one day she finishes it, but either way I love her, I-well I love this fic. 

DARKWICCAN: Well I am thrilled to include that as our, as your desert island selection in our show notes for this episode, uh… RainbowBus, this has been-

DELAYNE: A ride!

DARKWICCAN: -an absolute ride, yes.

DELAYNE: [Laughs] 

DARKWICCAN: But the most wonderful kind of thrill ride! [Laughs] Uh, and I’m excited to see what the heck you have your characters doing next - the last thing they were doing was just wreaking havoc at a Pride event, um- [laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: [Laughs]

DELAYNE: Uh, now wasn’t there sex in a candy room? [Laughs]

RAINBOWBUS: Maybe…

DARKWICCAN: Yes there was!

DELAYNE: [Laughs] This is like-yeah definitely did not see that coming.

ALL: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, that was, uh, that was-yeah-for-little candy room, really more than anything, is what I didn’t see coming, I mean…

DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Lately these two are like-are like, uh, sugar loaded bunnies, um-

RAINBOWBUS and DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: -but, er...so-so RainbowBus I think that your chaotic influence is starting to affect Delayne and I, so with-with that-

RAINBOWBUS and DELAYNE: [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN: -uh, I’m going to bid you adieu, and-and good luck on your, uh, next chapter, which I’m sure is going to be an absolute….just chaotic delight.

RAINBOWBUS: [Laughs] Well thank you so much, this was fun! 

MUSIC: Don’t Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Maddigan

DARKWICCAN: And that's all for this episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Thanks for joining us.

Tremendous thanks to RainbowBus for chatting with us about their work!

Thanks also to our announcer Byron Tidwell for our intro 

Background music for the episode was:

A Proper Story by Darren Korb; Noodle It Out by Ryan Ike; I Want Candy by The Strangeloves, and the outro music is Don't Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Madigan

If you have questions or comments for the podcast you can find us on Twitter at E-F-A underscore Podcast and on Facebook at E-F-A Podcast. 

And you can find all of our episodes, old and new, at our website E-F-A Podcast dot com.

And if you're listening on iTunes, please take a moment to rate and review our show.

Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you'll join us again next time for another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Until then, READ MORE FIC!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Episodes post Mondays at 8am PST
> 
> Visit our Website http://efapodcast.com/ for all episodes old and new!
> 
> Follow us on Twitter: @efa_podcast
> 
> And on Facebook: facebook.com/EFAPodcast


	9. To the Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This week DW and Delayne chat with author BlimeyOhLimey about their vast library of works... all written in less than a year!

[Click HERE to Listen!](http://efapodcast.com/to-the-point)

Read their stuff!

[BlimeyOhLimey on AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlimeyOhLimey/pseuds/BlimeyOhLimey)

Episode Artwork by Chantal Zeegers

Blimey's Desert Island Fic Selection is: [Whenever I'm alone with you (you make me feel like I am young again)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17580728) by [darcy81](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darcy81/pseuds/darcy81)

Transcript by ApproxTenCats

Ep 409: To The Point

[ph] – Indicates preceding word has been spelled phonetically

[sic] – Indicates preceding word has been transcribed verbatim

MUSIC : Write My Story by Olly Anna

ANNOUNCER GUY : You've tuned in to the _Earp Fiction Addiction_ , a fan podcast all about _Wynonna Earp_ fanfiction. Join our intrepid host DarkWiccan and Delayne as they dive deep into the sometimes sweet, sometimes spicy, and always varied world of fanfiction for the _Wynonna Earp_ fandom.

MUSIC : A Proper Story by Darren Korb

DARKWICCAN: Thanks Announcer Guy and welcome everybody to another episode of the _Earp Fiction Addiction_ , the podcast dedicated entirely to _Wynonna Earp_ fanfiction. I am your host DarkWiccan, and with me is my delightful co-host...

DELAYNE: Hi, it’s Delayne.

DARKWICCAN: And also with me is my delightful child, who doesn’t speak in words yet so she can’t introduce herself. But yeah, if you hear crinkling noises or babbling in the background that’s my kid. 

DELAYNE: I’m sure our listeners won’t mind at all.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah. I’m hopeful they’ll be forgiving. So gosh, another week come and gone. They just keep sliding by don’t they?

DELAYNE: [laughs] I have no concept of time anymore.

DARKWICCAN: What day is it? What week is it? What month is it? It’s May, it’s May, the lusty month of May.

DELAYNE: And this will post?

DARKWICCAN: In June.

DELAYNE: In June. [laughs] So yes, things are going very quickly.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah. [laughs]

DELAYNE: From May to June like it’s nothing.

DARKWICCAN: [CONTENT CENSORED. VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT]

DELAYNE: [laughs] That was my favourite one so far.

DARKWICCAN: Ah thank you. Entirely off the cuff that one. And that’s the truth, I literally just-- yeah, I was not reading that.

DELAYNE: You should write it down so you can read it, it was great.

DARKWICCAN: Well, yeah, I’ll listen back to it and transcribe it. So this week we have got a bit of a mountain to tackle.

DELAYNE: [laughs] I refreshed today and I was like, oh, 26 fics was in my mind and now of course it’s 28.

DARKWICCAN: Yes.

DELAYNE: So.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, that’s right. 28 fics. What a mountain. We typically only talk about a maximum of four, maybe six for our six short shorts. Today we are not actually talking about all 28 fics in any sort of depth. We’re really more talking about the author who was so prolific, and their writing style which is very unique. And it just so happens that they’ve written 28 fics, in less than a year.

DELAYNE: It’s a lot. It’s very impressive.

DARKWICCAN: It is a lot. Yes, it’s very impressive. The author is BlimeyOhLimey, it’s very hard for me to say that without putting on some sort of horrible cockney accent.

DELAYNE: [laughs] It’s going to happen and I’m so excited to hear it.

DARKWICCAN: I’m going to resist, I’m going to resist.

DELAYNE: At some point.

DARKWICCAN: BlimeyOhLimey has been writing for less than a year. Even at the time this will post it will have been less than a year. They started writing in July of last year and it has just been an avalanche of stories from them from the get-go. They’re unique not only for how prolific they are, but also for their writing style is very interesting. It’s not a style that I’ve seen really anywhere else. And while their writing style is consistent their story subjects, genres and whatnot, change wildly. Like they are not someone who is writing the same story over and over again, that’s to be sure. 

DELAYNE: Yes, the diversity in fics from wealthy yacht Nicole to French chef Nicole and so many Waverlys in between, it’s just-- it’s crazy y’all.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, it’s wild. And just what an imagination. I mean phew. Some of the scenarios that Blimey puts our characters into I never would have thought of that, that is really creative. [laughs] I mean, just really running the gamut from A-Z here and probably beyond, probably into imaginary numbers. I don’t know, like--

DELAYNE: [laughs] I don’t know, I don’t math.

DARKWICCAN: Right, yeah, we don’t math on this show. Do you have a favourite of theirs?

DELAYNE: I do, and it was actually the first one that I read when I picked up on-- because I’m not like you, I just can’t read them all.

DARKWICCAN: Fics are like Pokemon for me.

DELAYNE: Gotta catch ‘em all.

DARKWICCAN: Yep.

DELAYNE: So by the time BlimeyOhLimey came across my radar it was with _Brighton Rocks_ and I think that was like fic number nine maybe in the list?

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, I think that’s right. About nine or ten.

DELAYNE: So already I had missed a whole bunch previous, but _Brighton Rocks_ caught my eye because I have been to Brighton, and my cousin/best friend at the time had gone to a postgrad there, was living in a flat, she was the odd American out. So this whole story I’m picturing a flat that I’ve been to. Of course the description of the flat does not quite match but I made it work in my head.

DARKWICCAN: Just moved a few walls, no problem.

DELAYNE: Yeah, it wasn’t quite the open spacing that BlimeyOhLimey has in their fic, anyway I just-- you know whenever I find something I can connect to, somewhere I’ve been, something I can understand, of course I grab onto it and yeah that was a fun and interesting fic.

DARKWICCAN: And one of the mid-range length fics that Blimey has written. Blimey’s fics range in length from a couple of thousand words to 80,000 words.

DELAYNE: Yeah, the word counts are also-- there’s nothing consistent about, there’s nothing static I guess, consistent isn’t the right word, because it is consistent, it’s definitely a well defined, unique style of writing. But it’s the variety in the stories, in the lengths, in the scenarios, there’s just-- I forgot where I was going with this, that’s how much it--

DARKWICCAN: Well, okay let’s go back to _Brighton Rocks_ for a second, let’s focus on that one. So you say that it really got your attention because it reminded you of your time in the UK.

DELAYNE: Yes.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, so tell us a little bit more about the story, what’s the story about?

DELAYNE: Oh shit, I’ve read so much other stuff. 

DARKWICCAN: Basic gist.

DELAYNE: Right, Waverly is in a postgrad program? 

DARKWICCAN: Mhmm.

DELAYNE: Yeah, is headed to Sussex University which, one thing I didn’t realise is, well I think I knew that there were two different universities there, but of course my friend went to Brighton Uni. So, not quite sure where the Sussex Uni is located but-- shit, my mind is all over the place today, I’m so sorry. 

DARKWICCAN: Okay, what the story is about is it essentially Waverly is starting university in Brighton, she needs a place to live, she finds a flat with an available room and she rents the room essentially for the semester. And in the process she meets all of her housemates which include-

DELAYNE: Doc who owns the house.

DARKWICCAN: -Doc owns the house, Robin, Chrissy lives there as well I believe? And of course Nicole, Nicole Haught.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: So Waverly goes on a little journey of discovery. So that’s essentially the premise for-- well that is the premise for _Brighton Rocks_ . My favourite story of Blimey’s is the longest one, because of course it is, and it’s called _N_ as in the letter N for Nicole. And it’s a unique AU in that we’ve got a Nicole who-- it’s funny in that we’ve had quite a few authors delve into the idea of Nicole being not so bright, which I don’t understand where this idea comes from because Nicole is clearly a very intelligent person on the show. So maybe that’s it, maybe it’s let’s just try to flip this on its ear, but the funny thing is nobody ever writes Waverly as being a little slow. Like it’s just too difficult to believe that Waverly could be slow, in any universe, but Nicole you have plenty of iterations of Nicole where she’s just a little bit dumb. So I’m wondering why is this? Twitter tell me, why is this? I don’t understand, I really don’t. But it’s really cute and adorable when it’s pulled off well and I think Blimey does a really good job of pulling it off with Nicole here. And I don’t think it’s so much a case of Nicole being truly developmentally slow, it’s more of an instance of her being uneducated and born into poverty, particularly dire circumstance and this story takes place kind of in the Dickensian time period, Victorian/Dickensian time period. Nicole is an orphan with difficult roots, she ends up running away from the place where she’s being cared for, “cared for” is very loose. And joins, of course she joins the circus.

DELAYNE: All orphans dream of.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, exactly. And she grows up in the circus, not doing acts but rather being an animal caretaker, she cares for the horses specifically, and in the process of caring for the horses she meets a gorgeous equestrian acrobat, Waverly Earp, and her sister Wynonna, and we go forth from there. The story is 80,000 words even.

DELAYNE: Exactly. 

DARKWICCAN: 38 chapters, and so it is-- all the stories we are talking about are complete. Blimey currently doesn’t have any unfinished works on AO3, or on the board as I like to say.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Callback to the old KB days. And I mean if you’re one of those completist readers you got no problems here, all of Blimey’s stuff is finished. 

DELAYNE: We know quite a few people who refuse to read unless it’s complete. 

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, and that’s totally fine, I mean I get it you know. As someone who reads everything it is very time consuming, especially when you don’t have a guarantee that a work is going to be finished there is sometimes that fear that I’m going to get really invested in the story and then something happens with the writer where they’re unable to finish the work. And that can be very frustrating. I mean there are still stories on the Different Colored Pens Board, which is a Willow and Tara board where Delayne and I hail from originally, there are still stories there that are unfinished and have been unfinished for ten fifteen years, and people will still talk about them. Like, “oh god, I really wish so-and-so would come back and finish this.” They’ve been gone for over a decade, they’re probably not coming back at this point.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: So I get it, I understand being a completist, totally. 

DELAYNE: So yeah, with Blimey you don’t have to worry about it at all.

DARKWICCAN: Nope.

DELAYNE: And if you have a weird obsession with fics being an even number of words--

DARKWICCAN: For the most part Blimey’s got you covered.

DELAYNE: ‘Cause, oh my goodness. How does one complete a large fic and end at exactly 80,000 words?

DARKWICCAN: I think it’s actually easier when the story is longer to end on a round number than it is when you’re writing a short one shot.

DELAYNE: So all the one shots with 2,000 words--

DARKWICCAN: Are even harder. Yeah. And see this where Blimey’s writing style comes into play, hugely.

DELAYNE: Ah.

DARKWICCAN: Blimey’s writing style is incredibly succinct. If you were to compare it to one of the dead white guy authors that everyone has to read in high school, I’d say probably the closest you would get as far as style but not content, definitely not content, would be Hemingway. Hemingway who strove for the most simple to the point sentences without any additional embellishment. That is really how Blimey writes. And Blimey has gotten some push back for this. Which is unfortunate.

DELAYNE: That is another thing that brought Blimey to my radar, that was seeing on Twitter that people are like-- Blimey was simply requesting, “you know if you don’t like my work there’s no need to come at me.”

DARKWICCAN: Yeah.

DELAYNE: I don’t know if we want to deep dive into that on this podcast today or not.

DARKWICCAN: Well, Éilis has something to say about it, go ahead Éilis the floor is yours. She says it’s mean. She’s slamming her hand on the desk saying it’s mean, people shouldn’t be that way. Listen, we’ve talked about this before, if you don’t like-- and I think for the most part when it comes to our listeners everyone’s on the same page. Everyone’s on the same page here. If you don’t like something click out of it. If it offends your sensibilities to the point where you’re like, “ah I can’t with this,” then that’s your big clue, you shouldn’t. Click out. Move on to something else.

DELAYNE: It’s that simple, it’s that easy.

DARKWICCAN: It’s that easy. You don’t have to say a ding dang thing. You just click out, done. And I just don’t understand why people will use their energy to be unnecessarily mean to someone just because someone’s writing style isn’t your cup of tea. I don’t-- I just don’t get it. I just don’t y’all. It just baffles me completely.

DELAYNE: Colour me baffled.

DARKWICCAN: Yep. So I will say this it did take me a couple of stories for me to acclimate to Blimey’s writing style, but once I’d acclimated I got it man. And I like it because it is unique, it is different, it, it, you know-- 

DELAYNE: And it does, I guess, [Éilis makes a noise in the background] oh that’s so adorable. The style is also conducive to rather quick reading.

DARKWICCAN: It is. It is.

DELAYNE: You can really get through the fic but you’re not missing out on anything.

DARKWICCAN: You’re not, you’re not. What’s it missing? It’s missing sweeping romantic descriptions.

DELAYNE: Which we get plenty of those.

DARKWICCAN: We get plenty of them. And they’re very good but sometimes, you know what, I get what you’re telling me, can we get along to the next point. You know? And so that’s what Blimey does, they get to the point. They’re like, you know, here it is. The thing-- now the one thing is it does, not only in the prose, it does filter into the dialogue as well. The dialogue can also be a bit to the point. Not always. And one way that Blimey breaks this up is they’ll have their characters speak in a dialect. That’s one thing I really enjoyed about _N_ is that Nicole and a couple of other characters very clearly have a very specific dialect, British dialect they’re speaking in. And that breaks it up a bit, that breaks up the, sort of, I don’t want to say simple, simple is the wrong word, because to write like this is very hard, it’s very very difficult. What is a better word-- conservative use of language in the story, it gets a little broken up when we get to dialogue. Yeah, there we go. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

DELAYNE: [laughs] See, words are hard, especially when you’re trying to be precise and not flowery. So I think that was an excellent example.

DARKWICCAN: And something that I want to talk about too as far as folks' reactions to Blimey’s writing, when you decide you don’t like something, and then you make the choice, you make the choice to say something negative to the author about it. It is a muse-killer man, it can really scuttle an author’s ability to be creative. Because authors are artists, you guys, they’re sensitive people. And there was a period of time where Blimey was about to quit, because folks were being just unnecessarily rough on them. And so there was a period where they struggled with one particular story called _The Space Between Us_ which does kind of have a little bit of a meandering storyline, the writing is succinct but the storyline is a bit meandering, because they were really having to work through the put-downs to get their muse to cooperate with them. I mean, again, guys c’mon. If you don’t like a story, if you don’t like a style, skip it. 

DELAYNE: It’s really that simple.

DARKWICCAN: And Éilis agrees. 

DELAYNE: [laughs] I am really enjoying Éilis’ input here. I gotta say.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, she’s got a lot to say. She’s been on this earth for six months, she’s got opinions.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: _The Space Between Us_ is a fun one I think, it’s a space opera, it’s Wayhaught in space but not like-- it’s fantasy space, it’s like _Star Wars_ sort of, but it’s not. It’s its own thing, it’s its own completely creative thing. Yeah.

DELAYNE: And again shows the diversity in these fics. I mean space opera versus circus, you know? Dickensian circus. How far apart.

DARKWICCAN: Exactly, exactly. So wildly creative, all of these scenarios just completely creative. I mean gosh there’s a story where it takes place at the same time of-- what was the movie about the-- oh my god, I’m failing my queer history, failing my queer history right now. What?

DELAYNE: I don’t know what you’re talking about?

DARKWICCAN: It’s _Code Red_ , the story _Code Red_? Where they’re working on the code breaking in the 1940s, in England, that really famous-- oh my gosh I can’t remember his name. At Bletchley Park. I can remember all this other stuff but I can’t remember this guy’s name. The guy.

DELAYNE: Ah, Turing.

DARKWICCAN: Turing. Turing. That guy. Alan Turing. Yes. There’s this story where they’re working on the code breaking with Alan Turing in the 1940s, I mean like-- so you know. And one thing that Blimey does really seem to like to tackle in their storytelling is that the forbidden side of the love between Waverly and Nicole. Like in _Code Red_ Nicole was Waverly’s superior officer, not only that but they’re both women in the 1940s in the British army. Not the safest place to be canoodling. Then in _N_ they were completely safe within the walls of the circus but to the outside world how are they going to handle that? So it’s interesting how because Nicole as N in that story is just not bothered, or because she doesn’t know better. Or not better, I think she knows better because she doesn’t know society's rules, does that make sense? Like it’s not better to follow society's rules at times, so I can’t say that she doesn’t know better. But she doesn’t know from society so she doesn’t take any steps to--

DELAYNE: She’s not bothered by society’s rules.

DARKWICCAN: She’s not bothered by society’s rules so she doesn’t take any steps to hide this relationship and how other people respond is how other people respond and there you go.

DELAYNE: And the more contemporary fics it’s seemed to-- you know it’s not as taboo certainly in the more contemporary fics but there’s at least a little Waverly questioning or there’s a lot of-- there’s a few friends with benefits but maybe we don’t want to admit that we’re really into each other. I guess that seems to fit in the theme of “we’ve still got to get a little bit of this forbidden-ness.”

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, well there’s another story where Waverly is a computer-- she decides to become a hacker, to be a white-hat hacker essentially. And Nicole is a CIA officer and Waverly gets involved in the wrong hacker group by accident and she and Nicole cross paths, Nicole is investigating this group, and that one’s called _Cat and Mouse_ by the way, so once again we have this forbidden relationship. Not in the sense they’re two women but in the sense that you’ve got a CIA agent who is investigating and actively--

DELAYNE: The quote/unquote bad guy against the quote/unquote good guy.

DARKWICCAN: Exactly, so that’s what I’m talking about, it’s not like it’s forbidden. There is that element of forbidden-ness? I don’t know, foreboding? No. Maybe? Foreboding?

DELAYNE: [laughs] We are killing it with words this episode I’ll say. 

DARKWICCAN: Well, you know what I think it’s because Blimey is so excellent with their choice of words so we’re just the exact opposite and just stumbling all over the map. So why don’t we get to the person who’s good with words?

DELAYNE: That sounds great. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Great. You know what the funny thing is, we encourage all of our interviewees to embrace tangents because we are trying to fill a certain amount of time right? I don’t think we’re gonna-- I think we’re going to have to ask double the amount of questions. 

DELAYNE: So if Blimey is as succinct in person as they are in writing this will be interesting.

DARKWICCAN: It’ll be interesting, apologies in advance you guys, there’s going to be a lot of Delayne and I continuing to stumble all over the map while Blimey is delightfully to the point. So let’s get to this circus act chatting with Blimey in our second segment. [CONTENT CENSORED. PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT]

  
  
  
  


MUSIC: Upbeat Party by Scott Holmes

DARKWICCAN: And welcome back everybody to the _Earp Fiction Addiction_ , the podcast dedicated entirely to _Wynonna Earp_ fanfiction. I remain your host DarkWiccan and with me is my wonderful co-host--

DELAYNE: Hi, it’s Delayne.

DARKWICCAN: And also with me is my wee little babe Éilis who you might hear babbling again in the background, or she might ask a cogent question that Blimey can answer later on. But with us of course also is our author BlimeyOhLimey. Blimey welcome to the show.

BLIMEY: Hello, hello.

DARKWICCAN: Thank you so much for joining us today.

BLIMEY: My pleasure, it’s a real treat to just be able to explain my writing.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, you know what we had a lot of fun chatting about your stories and your writing style in the first segment because it is so unique and you’re so prolific. 28 fics. In less than a year? 28.

BLIMEY: Yeah, I’ve kind of gone on a bit of a roll.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, which is fantastic. It has been a joy watching your writing blossom on AO3, one fic after the other. It’s been a delightful challenge to keep up with you.

BLIMEY: Oh right, thank you.

DARKWICCAN: [laughs] So about 28 stories, you started less than a year ago, so that is in some cases more than a fic every-- a couple of fics every two weeks.

BLIMEY: Yeah, yeah. I mean my most recent stories have been short stories so it’s either 2,000 or 2,500 words. Just to sort of give me a break from the longer stories. Partly because I don’t plan my stories, I work with them as they come out, or as they come into my head, and so it just occurs to me if I was stuck on any particular story I could have a bit of a break and just think about something different by having a short story to throw out. Problem is I actually quite enjoy writing the short stories so I’ve ended up writing more than I expected.

DELAYNE: And you’re publishing them it seems like almost daily.

BLIMEY: Yeah, yeah. 

DARKWICCAN: Which is again is so much fun, “oh there’s another one from Blimey, okay what’s this one?” Yeah, yeah.

BLIMEY: “Oh no, she’s written another one.”

DARKWICCAN: No, no, no. [laughs]

DELAYNE: That was not the correct intonation.

DARKWICCAN: No, not at all. What drew you to _Wynonna Earp_ ? Because you’ve only written for _Wynonna Earp_ so what got you involved in this fandom and writing for it?

BLIMEY: Well it started, I was on Twitter, had hardly any involvement with it, it was one of those things where I had two people following me and I was following about nine. And then watched _Wynonna Earp_ , absolutely fell in love with the show, thought nothing of it and then there started to be-- I think there was some announcement that the show was going to be delayed in February of last year and from then it just exploded, you know, I’ve got to be involved. I was so drawn to the last episode of season three, and it ended on such a cliffhanger that I was desperate to just get the final part of the story. So I put all my efforts into working with everyone that wanted to get the show a fourth season, and then I think somebody wrote that while there isn’t a show there are fanfictions that you can read. And I’d never heard of fanfiction. Ever. 

DARKWICCAN: Wow.

BLIMEY: So I thought this is interesting and the very first one that I read was one by Darcy and thought, “oh this is really really interesting”, this is such an unusual thing to do, where you take characters from a show and put them into alternative scenarios. And that was it, that was my fascination with it. There was no idea that I was going to write. I mean I do something-- I write for a living but it’s completely non-fiction stuff, nothing to do with anything like this. And I think I had made contact with Darcy via Twitter and then other _Wynonna Earp_ fans suggested lots and lots of other fanfictions. In fact it was Sofi in Australia gave me a list of about 65 fanfictions and said, “these are the ones, if you’re going to read fanfiction for _Wynonna Earp_ read these ones.”

DELAYNE: 65? 

BLIMEY: 65. She said these were her top. “If you need anymore just let me know, these are the ones I recommend.” So I think the second one she recommended was _The Grind_ by ODAAT-

DARKWICCAN: ODAATlover yeah.

BLIMEY: -so you know I started reading and thought this is such a clever idea. Again didn’t have any sort of thoughts about writing. And then it was Sofi who wrote her first one, _Sunshine Coast_ , and I happened to make a comment to her about the first couple of chapters. You know, “this is fantastic, keep going, it’s really great.” And she came back and said, “well, why don’t you have a go?” And I thought, “no, I can’t do this, I don’t know how to write dialogue, I don’t know how you put these together.” But you know you just get this seed of a thought that says, “oh I really-- maybe if I just try one.” And that was it. I just tried the first one. So _Love on Loan_ , I can’t even remember which one it was, but _Love on Loan_ was my first one, first thing I’ve ever written as a fanfiction, or as a fiction. And I was petrified, just thought that my words are going to go out and people are going to read them and think, “oh gosh, it’s lovely, you’ve done very well, but please if there’s anything else you need to do just go and do that.” And then somebody came back to me and said, “I really like this first chapter, you do need to do a second chapter.” And I thought, “oh, right, okay.” And so I wrote the second chapter and 28 fanfics later maybe I've kind of got a bit of a bug for this.

DARKWICCAN: [laughs]

BLIMEY: And I always call it like licking honey off of the sword, there’s that pain and pleasure that you get. Absolute pleasure once you finish something and it’s yours, you own it. But then there’s the pain you have to go through of pushing it out into the world. But we’re so lucky with this community to be able to have people who are fully supportive of whatever style or whatever story you want to put out. So I just think, gosh, I just wanted to watch a programme. That was it.

DARKWICCAN: [laughs]

BLIMEY: The sum total of my ambitions in the world, watch programme, that’s it.

DARKWICCAN: Wow, that’s awesome.

DELAYNE: Okay, first of all, this is to DW, I’m glad you were wrong in the first segment when we thought we might have trouble getting answers from Blimey.

DARKWICCAN: [laughs] Yeah, me too.

BLIMEY: Yes, stopping me I think is the-- succinct in writing but not in verbalising my life.

DARKWICCAN: It’s great.

DELAYNE: [laughs] I am loving this so far, this is great.

BLIMEY: I’m glad.

DELAYNE: Okay so, we have talked a lot about your prolific writing, you’ve written so many, how do you keep track of all of that inspiration?

BLIMEY: Sometimes I don’t. I mean as I’ve said I’m not a planner, I don’t have a story completely lined up when I start it. There’s been a lot of times when I’ve started a story, got so far into it and thought, “oh, ah, right, okay I’ve really made myself a problem here.” I keep putting this out to people when they post comments, of saying sorry I’ve just put myself into a plot corner. So keeping up with inspiration is really just a question of if a story idea comes into my mind and if I’ve got a rough idea of where I want to go with it, I kind of go with it, which has led to some interesting excursions. I know when I started writing _The Space Between Us_ , that started off as a completely different idea and in fact had a completely different title. And I got about two or three chapters in and I had so many bizarre ideas I thought I can’t-- I mean I had an ethereal kind of antagonist, like an AI almost, somebody you wouldn’t see, and then I was going to have Waverly’s character as not speaking so I’ve lost 50% of my dialogue before I’ve even started. And I thought, “do you really need to make this so complicated? Why can’t you just go back and start again and just keep it as a story where you’ve got a relationship and you build your story around that relationship, obviously.” And so I went back-- it’s the first time I’ve ever pulled-- I’m going to sound so professional, the first time I’ve ever pulled a story. It’s gut wrenching because you really feel, you know I’m really thinking about this and I’m struggling with how to fit it all together. But then it felt better once I got going. But I then got to a point about two thirds into the story when it just got completely surreal. And I still laugh at myself thinking how I ended up with butterflies attached to people, I will never know. But I think that’s also the fun of it. Because this is still quite raw to me I thought, “why not just try something.” So I’m trying to think if I've answered your question?

DELAYNE: [laughs] Essentially you don’t, you just go with it.

BLIMEY: I think that’s why I ended up with butterflies somehow, “you know what I think I’ll just go this way, that’ll be quite good.” The inspiration side just is-- where it comes from-- I don’t keep notes as such, I don’t even put down an entire plot. I’d love to say to somebody who wants to start writing, “you know the best thing to do, write all your story down.” Some people love doing that, and for me personally I actually do like writing from the seat of the pants and just being there in the moment and seeing what comes out once I start.

DARKWICCAN: That’s so exciting. I love the fact that first of all you’d never heard of fanfiction before. The thing is that’s true for all of us at some point in our lives before we got into the fanfic gamut. We had never heard of it and had stumbled across it or it was brought to our attention all of a sudden it was like a whole new world opened up.

BLIMEY: Yeah, yeah.

DARKWICCAN: So I love that. And I love the fact that you’ve also never written fiction before and the great thing about fanfiction is it’s such an excellent training ground for writing fiction. It’s a wonderful training ground because you find your author’s voice, you learn how to write descriptively, you learn how to emote through your language and you find your niche. And I think the fact that you are new to this explains a lot about how you have so many very, very different stories in you that you’ve written. Because it’s like you’re just playing, you’re in the sandbox and you’re playing with all these different shapes and forms and just, “what happens if I add a little more water to the sand here, or what happens if I work with it dry?” That explains so much about your writing and it’s very exciting, very exciting.

BLIMEY: I’m glad. I’m glad there’s an explanation. If I get to the point where you say I really don’t know why you’ve written that one. The last one that I wrote as I’ve said in my notes, it was for me the most emotional, and I actually did spend a couple of days crying thinking, “oh I can’t put this out.” You know that thing where you click the button it says “major thing happening”, and I thought oh no. Because I do know that other authors have found that there have been issues around that. Then I thought sometimes you have to be brave, sometimes you have to throw something out there and I thought I’d probably get a couple of people reading thinking, “oh no, really don’t do this again.” But so many people have come back and said yes it’s very emotional, but it’s also something they’re prepared to read. I think again that’s half the fun of this, just having something you can say okay I’ll give this a go, I’ll see how it goes. And then it’s out there.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, absolutely, and why not play in all these different sandboxes, to use a phrased that is used. So you’ve got all these different versions of Nicole and Waverly. It seems like Nicole is your favourite character to play with overall, what is your favourite Nicole variant that you’ve written. 

BLIMEY: I like her as N. I fell in love with her as the character of N. I don’t know how even that character came to me, I think I was writing something else, something triggered for me to write this character that comes from nothing and rises up. And a couple of people in their comments said, “oh this is similar to the _Oliver Twist_ story” which it is but you know so many stories are similar to other stories. But just finding a character that I actually kept wanting to go back and get more out of, out of her if that makes sense.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah absolutely, and you know like you say all stories-- I think it’s Bootsncatz who actually says there are only seven stories in the world and they all just keep getting re-told in different ways. So, so what if your story has elements that remind people of another story, that’s true for every frickin’ story. 

DELAYNE: Look at Shakespeare stories, I mean c’mon. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Exactly, exactly. 

BLIMEY: That’s my next one, yeah.

DARKWICCAN: There you go. And I don’t recall Oliver ending up in a circus so I would say that it’s definitely different.

BLIMEY: Well it’s Oliver with a twist.

DARKWICCAN: Hey. Nice one, nice one.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: So N is your favourite Nicole, which one is your favourite Waverly?

BLIMEY: I actually, I like her in _The Gift_ , I think that story for me. I’ve had to re-read my stories for the last couple of days to get a sense of what I’ve written. And it’s amazing when you do read back what you’ve written you think, “oh, I’m going to change that.” Because that’s not how I write now. I can sort of feel where I’ve brought in changes. But Waverly’s character in _The Gift_ is such fun to write because, I mean the idea of a time travelling watch, how do you get that idea, I think I walked into my bedroom and thought, “you know that’s the story I’m going to write.” I’m going to write about a time travelling watch. So I tend to start with an idea and then I pick a character that I want to lead on immediately it was Waverly was going to be the one who was going to do the travelling. But it was the humour that came out through her travels and she just seemed to be that sassiness and those lines that even I was writing and thinking, “oh that’s a bit silly,” but it lifted it a bit. Because I was tending to go down the route of saving the world, and world destruction, and that can get a bit heavy, “we’re all going to die.” It’s going to be a doom and gloom story. But I liked her in that a lot. I mean I like them all really.

DARKWICCAN: That was such a fun and creative story, the idea of-- the notion of not only a time travelling watch, but also the limitation of time that Waverly was able to spend in each experience and also ultimately the reveal of where the watch came from and the idea behind the whole set up was, and whose idea it was. That was really like, “ohhh that’s really interesting.”

BLIMEY: I’ll let you in on a secret with that, I got towards the end and I thought, “I have no idea how to finish this.” So I mean it was really I just had to spend a couple of days not thinking about the story because they live inside me, they live inside my head, and then it just came to me I thought, “yeah, I think that’s probably the easiest way to get out of this.” They all woke up at the end, it was a big dream, which I’ve used on another one where I got into a bit of a mess with. Yeah, so even if you think, “oh that’s really clever,” sometimes it’s just the writer there at the end going, “[panting] I’ve got it, I’ve got it, yeah it’s fine, we can get to the end.

DELAYNE: So you’ve picked a favourite Waverly and you’ve picked a favourite Nicole, which one of your stories would you say that you were most drawn to? I feel like maybe we’ve already got the answer but I want to know for sure.

BLIMEY: I think, actually, the one story will always be my first one. Because it’s my first one. It was the one that set me off on this journey. I think had I not been encouraged to write that story there wouldn’t be all the others. Each story for me is different, and I’ve got stories at the moment that I want to-- well I’ve got two stories at the moment that are kind of hovering that I will finish but I wanted to give myself a bit of a break from. But the first one will always be my favourite because at least I can go back. As I said I’ve been sort of re-reading all my stories and trying to get a sense of how I’ve developed over this past time i’ve had to write, I’m looking back and I’m thinking, “oh, I quite like it.” She says. 

DELAYNE: There’s something close to the heart about the first one, yes.

BLIMEY: I know it’s quite simple, but I think it is, I think that’s it, that’s my one.

DARKWICCAN: I think that’s very sweet, because I honestly, I go back to the first fic I ever wrote and I’m like, “eh, it’s okay.” [laughs]

BLIMEY: Do you feel when you’re writing now does it-- can you look at how you started and say, “ah right.” There’s the essence of how I write and there are changes that I brought in because I’ve written more since.

DARKWICCAN: Oh absolutely, yes. Yeah, I’ve definitely, definitely improved as a writer from my first attempt at fic. And the funny thing is the first fic I wrote which was back in 2003, I got a very good positive response from, “oh yeah, I’m a really good writer, check me out.” But now I go back and look at it and I’m like, “oyeee.” 

BLIMEY: Do you find-- because it was dialogue was the thing for me. I have no idea how you write dialogue, no idea. So were there things like that in your first writing that you experimented with and now you say, “oh it’s fine, they can say anything, it doesn’t really matter.”

DARKWICCAN: Well my background is in theatre so I actually was overusing dialogue, because I was relying so heavily on the intercommunication between the characters that I wasn’t focussing enough of developing the scene setting, and the emotion, and all these other important factors to storytelling. I was just so dependent on the characters having a conversation with each other to get this information across that I actually had to learn how to become a good narrative and prose author and step away from relying on dialogue. I actually challenged myself once to write an entire story with no dialogue, just to sort of break myself of the habit. And that was a rough one but I made it through and I was really proud of it actually at the end of the day.

BLIMEY: You almost go to your strength and then you’ve got to balance it, yeah.

DARKWICCAN: Absolutely. Speaking of writing and dialogue, specifically _N_ . _N_ is actually my favourite of yours as well, and I actually reached out to you while I was reading it and you’ve got to tell me, does N speak with a West Country accent because I’m just getting this huge vibe of West Country every time she opens her mouth. And you are like, “yes, yes, good spot,” and I’m like, “yes okay, go me.” So in writing in dialect how did you approach-- because to me it was crystal clear, and of course I’m a social linguistic nerd so I’m all over the accents but how did you approach writing N so that the dialect of her dialogue was so vivid?

BLIMEY: Partly because I was experimenting with different character voices. So that was the main exercise, how can I make these characters sufficiently different. And you kind of draw down to what you want that character to be. So I wanted her to be an aunty. She never gets named. She's just aunty, she’s just this person who’s an aunty and she needed to have a homelier, warm sense about her. And it’s little things kind of drawing on particular actors' origins and that kind of fed in as well. Because you always feel it’s nice to put in little bits that you pick up about the show or about the character-- and I know that’s kind of blurring the edges where you’re dealing with character and an actor in real life, but her way of speaking was just quite simple. So all I did was just repeated one phrase, I think she continuously said “my lovely” and that’s-- oh I can’t even do the accent, the dialect properly but you know “my lovely” no that doesn’t even sound right, might have to cut that.

DARKWICCAN: “My lovely”

BLIMEY: Yeah, we’ll all be practicing now a kind of West Country dialect and so that was just a little-- I mean it’s silly, it was just a cheat really. But it’s something to try and get her to be a homely character. And I sort of done it a little bit with other stories where I’ve used an accent and I’ve tried to put in a French accent and I’ve read where you shouldn’t overdo it, so you just put a little nuance in. Because otherwise everyone’s trying to read this and, “what? What is she trying to say?”

DARKWICCAN: [laughs]

DELAYNE: I did enjoy French Nicole, I will say that.

BLIMEY: Oh, is that _Side Order of Soulmate_ ? Is it that one? You know, again that’s [inaudible], that’s me telling my friend’s story, that’s how my friend met her husband. That even didn’t occur to me, how naive I am, that you can take stories from your own life and put them into a fanfiction. Provided you get the characters right obviously. And create this story around your own personal experiences. So _Side Order of Soulmate_ is how my friend, she really did go to France and she really did meet somebody there. And obviously I’ve embellished it and changed quite a lot of the story to fit around how I wanted it to develop. And again _Too Haught To Handle_ is my story.

DARKWICCAN: Aw.

BLIMEY: And it felt weird because you think, “ooh, I know too much about--”, obviously it’s completely slanted so I create the story but it’s actually quite nice when you’re reliving a memory. Oh and _Brighton Rocks_ is obviously where I went to university and it’s literally about the house where I lived. So maybe I’ve answered your inspiration question now. Where did you get it from? Oh it’s me, basically I’m just writing me all the time.

DARKWICCAN: No that’s great, I think most authors will pepper their stories with actual experiences from their lives. Whether it’s the overarching narrative or it’s just bits and bobs here and there. That’s generally how I’ll write. I’ll throw little easter eggs in for my wife when she goes back and reads my stuff she’ll go, “oh, I remember that, yeah.”

BLIMEY: Oh, that’s really good, that’s really good. Because when they get it they understand yeah. 

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, and for everyone else it’s just 

DELAYNE: Kind of like “aw that’s sweet.”

DARKWICCAN: Exactly yeah.

DELAYNE: It seems like you challenge yourself a lot, just on what you’ve said so far. It sounds like that you enjoy challenging yourself. So we noticed that a lot of your fics end in an even number and all these one shots are exactly 2,000, or 2.5. Is this one of those challenges that you put to yourself?

BLIMEY: Yeah, it’s a bit of a game. I have done it before in other writing, but again in non-fiction where you can write something, you can put it down. I used to write a blog, a stupid thing, but it’s called _One Hundred Words_ , and I used to just write short passages that were one hundred words. Mainly philosophical things, things like that.

DELAYNE: In the fic world we call those drabbles.

BLIMEY: Oh is it? Really?

DARKWICCAN: Well an official drabble is only one hundred words.

DELAYNE: Exactly.

DARKWICCAN: Exactly, yeah.

BLIMEY: Oh, so people write, see I’m learning, so people write-- oh no don’t start me-- so they write one hundred word stories as their fic? Ah. Oh okay, right.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, there’s a challenge.

BLIMEY: [inaudible] gets off from here and then immediately, “one hundred words, that’s how I’m going to write now.” So it keeps me tight on the story because otherwise I’ve got a tendency, I get to the end of that amount of words and suddenly, “oh I could go forward, I know exactly where this story could go,” so it’s almost like stopping myself and saying, “no, you’ve got a limit, you’re stopping, that’s it. You’re not writing any more.” Because quite a few people have come back and said, “could you extend this story? I’d quite like to see where it goes.” And even I put in one of them, come find me it is, I got to the end and I really want to go forward with this. Because I’ve got two longer stories that I’ve still got to finish I want to keep myself tight but yeah it’s a bit of a game. And you get there and you’re moving words around, “oh, is it 1,999? Let’s add an and in somewhere and just get it to 2,000.” 

DARKWICCAN: So speaking of your writing style, it’s very succinct, it’s very almost abrupt. How did it develop, and I’m wondering if it comes from what you do as a day job?

BLIMEY: I honestly don’t know, I don’t know where it came from. It’s just how I write, just how I write fiction. Because I’d love to say, “well I’ve studied for years and I know exactly why I write this.” I do like less is more, I think. If you can write something you can get your message out, and it’s clear, you’ve said enough words. I mean I cut everything out, which probably I shouldn’t. You know I’ll go back through and have a look and think, “too many justs or verys or ands.” I mean I’ve just got this thing about not having ands in a sentence. I’ll be down to one, oh I was down to one letter, and I have, I’ve got to N. I think there’s just that feeling that you don’t need to put everything in. As long as people get the story, people do get the story I hope, even though there’s not enough words to make it. “If you added a few more words in I would have understood it.”

DARKWICCAN: I think that obviously people are getting the story, as you’re writing it. For me it's a refreshing take. I will say it took a few of your initial stories for me to acclimate to the writing style, because it is kind of like, the closest I can make, not in content but in form, Hemingway.

BLIMEY: Ah, yeah.

DARKWICCAN: Who was striving for the perfect sentence, just exactly the [inaudible] you need and nothing else.

BLIMEY: I aspire to him but you know-- yes I would like to say Hemingway-esque. I do think there is some beauty in the brevity, that’s what I love about it.

DARKWICCAN: Well, brevity is the soul of wit.

BLIMEY: Yes it is. I can’t think of anything on that one.

DARKWICCAN: [laughs]

DELAYNE: I really like the phrase “beauty in the brevity.”

DARKWICCAN: Yeah that’s great.

DELAYNE: That’s the next phrase.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, hashtag beauty in the brevity, for sure.

BLIMEY: Yeah, and I think also we’re writing across the globe. So to be able to write something as simply as possible so as many people can get it, because I also struggle with the fact that a lot of the phrases I write have a bit of a British slant to it.

DELAYNE: [laughs] A little bit.

DARKWICCAN: That’s okay though.

BLIMEY: Just a little bit. Just a bit of a slant.

DELAYNE: I enjoy how British this is.

BLIMEY: Okay, that’s good, thank god. I had somebody comment, because one that I wrote I made a bit of an error of where I’d placed the story and just the wrong place that I’d put down. My background of course is in research so when I saw that I thought, “oh no,” because I was just being lazy. And when I saw that I did go back, I said “I’m so sorry, I was being completely lazy.” I did look up what happened on this particular island but I thought, “oh it’s fine, they all do stuff on that island, nobody will know, nobody will be taking this particular degree, nobody will challenge me on it.” But isn’t that great though that somebody took the trouble to put a comment in and say, “look this doesn’t happen on this particular island.” And I just thought, “where do you get that?” That, for me, I did go back and say “sorry, I should have really researched a bit more.”

DARKWICCAN: Which story was that one?

BLIMEY: You know I’ve forgotten which one it is. It’s the second-- it’s number twenty seven, it’s the one about the yacht.

DARKWICCAN: Oh yes, sorry. 

BLIMEY: I did write it.

DARKWICCAN: Even you can’t keep up with your writing.

BLIMEY: It’s Wednesday, I wrote it on Wednesday. That’s all I’ll say.

DARKWICCAN: _Let’s Come Together_.

BLIMEY: Yes, perfect, so memorable.

DELAYNE: Best interview we’ve had in awhile I think.

BLIMEY: So sorry.

DARKWICCAN: Well, Blimey I don’t want to keep you from your next story which I’m sure is cooking in your head if not on the page. 

BLIMEY: No I’ve written it. I’ve got one hundred words already written while you were talking there. 

DARKWICCAN: Fantastic. Well before we do let you go we have one final question for you.

BLIMEY: Okay.

DELAYNE: Alright, you are stranded on a desert island and can have only one fanfic to read. What is it?

BLIMEY: It’ll have to be a Darcy fanfic. Only because her writing was the very first that I ever read. And then I sent Twitter a tweet saying, “I’ve just read this fantastic story--” I’m trying to think which one it was-- it wasn’t _Theatre of Dreams_ , it was another one. And Darcy came back and [gasp] I’m conversing with a fanfic author, and I think people on Twitter were kind of sniggering at me, “oh, fangirl, fangirl.” But it was just great, it was those sort of things, those sort of stories I’d want to just read it as nostalgia. There we are.

DARKWICCAN: So you’ve narrowed it to the author, is it _Dancing Through Life?_

BLIMEY: Whenever, whenever--

DARKWICCAN: _Whenever I’m Alone With You_

BLIMEY: That’s it.

DARKWICCAN: _Whenever I’m Alone With You (You Make Me Feel Like I’m Young Again)_ by Darcy81, okay. I am more than happy to provide a link to that story in our show notes for our listeners to take a look at that story if they haven’t already. 

BLIMEY: Yes.

DARKWICCAN: Blimey this has been so much fun.

BLIMEY: Thank you, I’m here to entertain.

DELAYNE: And you got DW to do an accent, and that is what I was wanting.

BLIMEY: I think you need to do a French accent to go out on. I think that would be the perfect--

DARKWICCAN: [French accent] Oui oui, okay well if we’re doing a French accent and we can go out on a French accent, thank you so much for joining us today and I look forward to continuing to attempt to keep up with your prolific writing.

BLIMEY: Thank you very much. And that was perfect, that was a perfect French accent.

DARKWICCAN: Merci.

BLIMEY: Au revoir.

  
  


And that's all for this episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Thanks for joining us.

Tremendous thanks to BlimeyOhLimey for chatting with us about their work!

  
  


Thanks also to our announcer Byron Tidwell for our intro 

Background music for the episode was:

A Proper Story by Darren Korb

Tinkerer's Shop by Shanito Sakamoto

Upbeat Party by Scott Holmes

and the outro music is Don't Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Madigan

  
  


If you have questions or comments for the podcast you can find us on Twitter at E-F-A underscore Podcast and on Facebook at E-F-A Podcast. 

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Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you'll join us again next time for another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Until then, READ MORE FIC!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Episodes post Mondays at 8am PST
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	10. Would You Look at That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This week DW, Delayne and special guest co-host Climb chat with author Harakiridaddy about his fantastic fiction!

[Click HERE to Listen!](http://efapodcast.com/would-you-look-at-that)

Read the fic!

####  [you are a runner (and i am my father's son)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22580443) by [harakiridaddy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/harakiridaddy/pseuds/harakiridaddy)

Episode artwork by Chantal Zeegers

This Week's Reverse Sponsor is Atomic Octopus 

Rafael's Desert Island Fic selection is [(I've never reached an answer) I'm only given clues by thefooliam](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7752806/1/I-ve-Never-Reached-An-Answer-I-m-Only-Given-Clues)

Episode transcript by Serena Hohenstein

[ph] - Indicates preceding word has been spelled phonetically

[sic] - Indicates preceding word has been transcribed verbatim

  
  


DARKWICCAN : Thanks, Announcer Guy and welcome everybody to another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction - The podcast dedicated entirely to “Wynonna Earp” fanfiction. I am your host Dark Wiccan and with me is my lugubrious co-host.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] It’s Delayne.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : You know those word-of-day calendars?

DELAYNE : [Laughs] I am… I am curious ‘cause that is one that I can not sus out based off of my etymology class. What the hell did you just call me?

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] Well, it’s actually not an accurate description.

BOTH : [Laugh] 

DARKWICCAN : It’s for, like, I love the word, so I’m gonna say the word, but it doesn’t describe you. It doesn’t describe you in this moment. 

DELAYNE : Ok.

DARKWICCAN : “Lugubrious” means looking or sounding sad and dismal [laughs].

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Ok, but, you’re not wrong.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Oh, are you my little Eeyore? 

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Yes. Yes, I always have been. 

BOTH : [Laugh] 

DARKWICCAN : But the thing is, is nobody knows that because you’re giggly on the show all the time.

DELAYNE : Right. 

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] 

DELAYNE : It’s an interesting dichotomy. Let’s move on! Alright!

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Moving right along [laughs]. But, you know what, uh, a lot of people are feeling kind of lugubrious these days, so it is, uh, up to folks like myself and you and your giggles, Delayne… 

DELAYNE : Yay!

DARKWICCAN : to raise their spirits during this difficult time. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Uh, and, uh, and keep each other, uh, you know, um, you know, in the… in the sunshiny [ph] state of mind if possible

DELAYNE : [Laughs] At least for brief, shining moments.

DARKWICCAN : Yes.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : And you know what makes us happy and gives us a smile?

DELAYNE : What?

[CONTENT CENSORED. PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT]

DELAYNE : Ok [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : Would you look at that? Hey-o [ph], we’ve made it to the portion of the show people actually tune in for. 

DELAYNE : Would you look at that! [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Would you look at that. 

DELAYNE : Uh, so, yeah, what… what are we looking at? You’re better at describing it, anyway. [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : We’re looking at a delightful coming-of-age AU written by the wonderful, harakiridaddy. Uh, it is called, “you are a runner (and i am my father’s son)”. Harakiridaddy has burst onto the scene of ao3 WayHaught “Wynonna Earp'' fanfic-dom [ph], uh, with two stellar entries into the, uh… the library of work, uh, and those are… This, uh, this story here, “you are a runner (and i am my father’s son)” and the other story of theirs… I wanna get it right, let me pull it up here, uh… 

DELAYNE : [Laughs] 

DARKWICCAN : No, I wanna, you know [laughs]... “on choosing one’s own name, or the quiet strength of being vulnerable” which is a… 

DELAYNE : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : unu… [ph] Yes. It is just… Guys, we’re not talking about that fic at any sort of depth today, uh, we’ll probably circle back around and discuss it in a future episode, uh, but, guys and gals…

DELAYNE : Go read it.

DARKWICCAN : and non-binary pals, please check out this story. It is one of very few trans Waverly fics and it is written beautifully. It is a gorgeous ode to the experience and it is wonderful. Check it out. But we are talking about the other story, “you are a runner (and i am my father’s son)”, which again, is a coming-of-age story. It is in the same ouvre - [overpronounciates] “ouvre” as…

DELAYNE : [Laughs] 

DARKWICCAN : what I kind of catalogue mentally as “folksy [ph] Nicole”.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Yeah. The, uh, the dialogue, the language, the pronunciation… What’s the…?

DARKWICCAN : The… the, um, colloquialisms.

DELAYNE : There we go. 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, it’s…

DELAYNE : The way Nicole talks… 

DARKWICCAN : Yes. 

DELAYNE : is, uh, it’s not, like, full “YeeHaw Nicole”, but it’s…

DARKWICCAN : It’s… 

DELAYNE : along the same vein.

DARKWICCAN : Yes. It’s kind of like, I don’t know, yeah, yeah, it’s, um…

DELAYNE : Folksy down home.

DARKWICCAN : It’s “Folksy Down Home Nicole” It’s… it’s, uh… This is not a high-falutin character.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] 

DARKWICCAN : This is a person of the earth. 

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Literally, in this case.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Which we’ll explain why in a minute. Nope, she’s not a golem. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : That’s an entirely different person of the earth. Uh…

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Sorry.

DARKWICCAN : And shalom to our Jewish listeners. Ok, so, uh, hi, Meredith. Sorry.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Anyway, uh… [laughs] This, again, it’s a coming of age story. It starts with Nicole at age twelve. She has run away from home from her neglectful parents and found her uncle Randy whom she has not met until now, uh, and basically explain that she, you know, has run away from home and that Randy is her uncle and that, uh, she is going to, you know, uh, she can’t live with her parents, so she’s going to live with him. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : And, so, he’s just kinda like, “Well, alright.”

BOTH : [Laugh] 

DELAYNE : Yeah, that’s… [laughs] And to… I… I don’t know, do we want to get serious first? I feel like we should get the seriousness out of the way. 

DARKWICCAN : Do it. 

DELAYNE : Ok. ‘Cause Nicole’s parents aren’t the, uh, the canon-esque [ph] traditional, just neglectful, not there, it’s… it’s a little worse because Nicole’s father is a terrible person. 

DARKWICCAN : Yes. He’s abusive and he’s a drug addict and his mother… her mother is also a drug addict and, uh, so of course this is [inaudible 7:58]... 

DELAYNE : And just kinda not there, yeah. 

DARKWICCAN : And just not there. Checked out.

DELAYNE : So, the mom’s more neglectful, yeah, checked out. Because she’s also being abused, right?

DARKWICCAN : Mmmhmm, mmmhmm [ph].

DELAYNE : And, uh, yeah, it’s… That’s… that’s heavy, you know, that’s a big thing to tackle. 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, so… so, trigger warning, uh, there are mentions of child abuse and neglect, but we never see anything quote, “on screen”.

DELAYNE : Yes, but it definitely shapes Nicole’s character. 

DARKWICCAN : Oh, for sure. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Uh, Ni… Nicole definitely, uh… This Nicole, uh, because she comes from such an unstructured environment, loves structure, so she creates herself a schedule that she follows, uh, and, so she is very much the planner in this story. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Yeah!

DARKWICCAN : And I love the fact that, uh, she points out to… to Uncle Randy that, uh, she doesn’t have a whole lot to fill her schedule with.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : So he’s like, “Um, have you thought about school?”

BOTH : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : Yeah, ‘cause before she kinda… yeah, you know, it… it wasn’t at the top of the list. 

DARKWICCAN : Right. Mainly just trying to eat.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Stay alive, pretty much, uh, was at the top of her list. Um, so… so, you know, she comes from this very very stark situation, and she moves in with, uh, Randy Nedley - known teddy bear - and, uh…

DELAYNE : [Laughs] It’s… Anytime we see good dad Nedley, uh, you know, it’s…

DARKWICCAN : Give me good dad Nedley all…

DELAYNE : Any good day.

DARKWICCAN : Yes. 

DELAYNE : Give us all the good dad Nedley. [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Please, please, please. Double, triple portions. Thank you.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] A big heaping spoonful of good dad Nedley.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] Uh, but, so… so really this is, um… We watch Nicole integrate herself into Nedley’s life and, uh, you know, attempt to… to go to school. She does go to school, but she struggles with school. This is another one of those, kind of, um, simple Nicole kind of stories. Uh, which is a trend I’ve seen [laughs] recently.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : But that’s ok. That’s ok. Uh, you know, um, lots of folks struggle with school but are otherwise incredibly intelligent. I mean this… this Nicole reads the myths, she knows Greek mythology. She, you know, thinks on the classics frequently. 

DELAYNE : [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : But is… is the environment of school her forte? No. 

DARKWICCAN : Uh, and that’s something I think a lot of people can relate to, where they are incredible intelligent people, but a structured public school environment is not the place for their brains. Um…

DELAYNE : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah.

DELAYNE : And that’s, that’s definitely this Nicole which, uh, you know, her… her group of friends, then, is no surprise. 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah.

DELAYNE : When, uh… [laughs] When it’s Wynonna and Wynonna’s group of friends and, you know, they’re the… they’re the outcasts, the other not… Not necessarily the bad kids, but, you know, just the…

DARKWICCAN : They’re on the fringes. They’re the fringe kids.

DELAYNE : I like that. The fringe kids. Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, uh, so… And in this story, you know, uh, Nicole is, um, Wynonna’s age. Or, wait? Yeah.

BOTH : She’s a year younger. 

DARKWICCAN : She’s a year younger, yeah. She’s a year younger than… than Wynonna which is true to canon as well. Um, and, uh, Waverly is, uh, not the same number of years younger as in canon, but still younger, right?

DELAYNE : Um, I think she’s two years younger, ‘cause when Nicole first goes to school, um, being behind in classes, I think she was put in, um, in English class with those two years younger. And then some of her other classes, and then just, you know, slowly worked her way up so that once she was in high school she was amongst those of her own age, but her first couple of classes, she was actually… she was in class with Champ and Waverly and Bobo.

DARKWICCAN : Mmmhmm, mmmhmm [ph]. That’s right. Uh, so… So, yes, in that… So, she knew Waverly at, um, you know [laughs]... Oy [ph] you get what I’m saying, right? You’re picking up what I’m putting down.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Waverly is younger. [Laughs]

DELAYNE : Waverly is younger. I believe it’s two years. At least two school years below. 

DARKWICCAN : Yes. 

DELAYNE : And we know Wynonna is one ‘cause she’s worried about, uh, you know… Once we get up there to age seventeen, you know, she’s, she’s got one more year and she’s gonna have one more year without her friends. 

DARKWICCAN : That’s right. Yes.

DELAYNE : ‘Cause they’re all older [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : Mmmhmm, mmmhmm [laughs]. She manages, though. She makes it through. Um, and really, just, each chapter of the story is one… In some cases it’s just one year of… of her life. In other cases it’ll jump through a couple years in a row, um, and that’s truer of the younger ages, but as she gets older, the chapters become more dedicated to a single age. And sometimes, uh, a single age will go across multiple chapters, um, depending on the milestones that… that Nicole is… is striking. And, so, you know, she goes through, you know, dealing with the bullies as in Bobo and Champ. And she goes through, um, you know, uh, struggling through school. She goes through trying to decipher whether she is actually friends with these people in her life, or if they just happen to be in the same place at the same time. 

BOTH : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : Oh my gosh. Those… that… Those conversations with… with Nedley when he refers to her friends and she’s talking about her, her tomato plants… [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : Exactly. Yes.

DELAYNE : That she’s given names to… [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Exactly. So…

DELAYNE : Those are some of the funniest scenes. Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : So, so, botanist Delayne, um…

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Hey, hey, hey, DW?

DARKWICCAN : Yes, yes, yes.

DELAYNE : Did you… Did you know I’m a botanist? [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Well, hold on.

DELAYNE : I feel it’s been a while since I [inaudible 14:49]. [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Whoa. Shut the front door. Stop the bus. Wait a minute. You’re a what now?

DELAYNE : [Laughs] I am a botanist. And I must say, I cannot garden worth a shit.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : I’m just gonna put that out there [laughs]. Just ‘cause I can identify plants doesn’t mean I can grow them. So, seeing this down-to-earth Nicole and her green thumb… [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : Was beautiful. I was… There was a moment, I screen captured it ‘cause I was like, “I… My… My botanist brain was really confused because there’s a scene where Nicole goes out to pick the tomatoes and cucumbers…

DARKWICCAN : Mmmhmm.

DELAYNE : And to fertilize the cabbages. And [laughs] “fertilize” to me is about sexual reproduction, so I’m like…

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] 

DELAYNE : “Is she, like, trying to…”

BOTH : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : So, I’m picturing her, like, trying to poliante the cabbages, but cabbages don’t grow to the point of flowering, so I’m trying to picture, like, how the hell is she fertilizing the cabbages.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : Where’s a gardener? A gardener would know fertilizes in to provide nutrients to feed the plants.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] Oh my god.

DELAYNE : So, it took me a moment, but [laughs] I was laughing about as hard as you were [laughs] when I realized what my brain had just done, like, “Oh my gosh, you’re kidding me.” [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Oh… Oh you hurt my lungs. Oh… Oh god.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] I don’t usually make you laugh that hard. I’m proud of myself.

DARKWICCAN : No, you don’t. You don’t normally hit me that hard. Wow, you got me.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Like…

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : She’s really dedicated to fertilizing those cabbages.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : She… She doing the mandalian cross genetics or something? Like, what the hell?

BOTH : [Laugh}

DELAYNE : Um… 

DARKWICCAN : But, yes, I… I love the fact that, um, uh… I love the fact that…

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Sorry, sorry [inaudible 17:30] That… that she does… That Nicole does name her plants and that at some point, at one point, um, she starts talking about one of her herbs and, uh, Nedley gets confused and he’s like, “Who are you talking about?” and he… She reminds him that it’s… it’s one of the herbs. And…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : And she gets mad ‘cause he still isn’t remembering their names he’s something like…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : “There are too many of them.” And she says something like, “There are only twenty-three.” [Laughs]

DELAYNE : [Laughs] 

DARKWICCAN : “That’s a reasonable number.” [Laughs]

DELAYNE : [Laughs] So, yeah, the, um… As… You’re not surprised that I’m a fan of… of botanist Nicole. Gardener Nicole. And, uh, I don’t know what else [laughs] more to say about other than it’s a…

DARKWICCAN : No thoughts on Timothy the, uh, the aggressive dill?

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Uh, I feel like the plants could have their own story, actually. You know, if… If…

DARKWICCAN : Should we just do a spin-off? 

DELAYNE : A spin-off?

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. 

DELAYNE : A little… Little garden drama going on?

BOTH : [Laugh]

DW: Well, you know what? I’ll broach that to… to…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : harakiridaddy and see what he thinks. Um, you never know. Uh, yes, yeah, the drama with Timothy the dill. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : It’s got to be experienced. We can’t describe it to you here. Um, but…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, uh, so, as, as Nicole is growing up and kind of going through all these experiences and, uh, you know, uh, growing into herself and… and the knowledge of who she is and, you know, all that stuff that we do as we’re growing up, I think the biggest enigma in her life is one Waverly Earp. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : And Waverly in this story - There are moments where she is, what I would call, downright cruel to Nicole. [Prolonged silence] You disagree?

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Um, so, I don’t disagree, um, I do love the way that it’s written, espe [ph]… Um, the scene that I’m thinking of is when Nicole decides to get Waverly a Birthday present ‘cause she remembered that no one remembers Waverly’s Birthday. And we go from having Shae help buy the present and then the next thing you know is Nicole’s really confused [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : Yes.

DELAYNE : It just jumps and I’m like, “What happened?! Why is Waverly giving her [laughs] the icy glare? And then… And then we start to build on the scene after that. I… It’s… It’s genius because it throws you and then it brings… it reels you back in [laughs]. Yeah, like, a little fishing going on there.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] Well, I will say, harakiridaddy, uh, has an amazing grasp of narrative flow and how to really maneuver the audience, uh, and get them into position for each of the setups.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : That’s the best way I can describe it, right? I mean, it’s… It’s like, you’re being steered, you’re being, um, driven in a certain way ‘cause… And… And guided with such gentle command to…

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Like the first place collie [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : Yes. Yeah, exactly. We are all harakiridaddy’s dogs [laughs]. No, I’m kidding.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : No, we’re the [inaudible 21:37]. Harakiridaddy’s the [inaudible 21:38]. Is the border collie. 

DARKWICCAN : Ok, gotcha [ph].

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : This metaphor may get cut out.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] That’s fine.

DARKWICCAN : See, ‘cause I was thinking of, like, agility training… Nevermind. Doesn’t matter. Ok, so…

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : You were thinking of ag, and I was thinking AKC. It’s ok. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Understandable.

DARKWICCAN : Yes.

BOTH : Uh…

DELAYNE : But, no, you were not… You were not wrong and, of course, you described it way better than I did. I like that. I like it a lot. 

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] 

DELAYNE : We are being gently commanded… [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : It’s like a magician… how a magical will masterfully misdirect you and you don’t realize you’re being misdirected. 

DELAYNE : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : And all of a sudden, “boomph” [ph], you know? There’s… There’s the…

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : The surprise.

DELAYNE : And then all of a sudden the surprise, “Why is Waverly so mean?”

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] I gotta tell you there’s one moment, there’s one scene, in this fic that just took my breath away in how, uh, I was just as shocked and embarrassed in that moment as Nicole was. And it’s a scene at Waverly… one of Waverly’s Birthday parties where Waverly’s seeing Champ at the time, and Nicole finds herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. And Waverly looks through her and it just so shook me to my core because I felt like I was there in that moment and that I was standing in Nicole’s feet at that moment. And I was just like, “Oh… Ouch.”

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : “Oh, the pain.”

DELAYNE : [Laughs] And that’s how you know it’s good writing.

DARKWICCAN : Yes.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : And just as that moment was so vivid, that kind of dark, cold moment was so vivid, there are so many delightful, warm, uh, uh, I don’t… Just warm and comforting moments in the story as well. 

DELAYNE : And lots of funny ones, too [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : And lots of funny ones, too.

DELAYNE : It’s a good balance, I think.

DARKWICCAN : It is, really, yeah. And knowing that harakiridaddy is, uh, from Brazil, uh, the fact that he writes in such a genuinely American sounding…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : ...narrative voice, I mean… It blows me away.

DELAYNE : Lot’s of TV? [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Possibly. Yeah. Uh, or…

DELAYNE : ‘Cause it’s…

DARKWICCAN : ...just lot’s of reading of, I don’t know, Mark Twain and Will Rogers, I…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Tennessee Williams, I don’t know! Like, uh, he has so, kind of, captured this very specific narrative sound, uh, that I’d always just equated with a… an American writing style. So, it just… It’s… It’s impressive to me, um, that, uh, that he’s, he’s able to take that style and make it his own.

DELAYNE : Indeed. I had no idea [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : Yeah.

DELAYNE : So, I am… I am definitely surprised, for sure. It’s… wow. 

DARKWICCAN : So, what was your… one of your favorite funny moments in the story?

DELAYNE : Oh, crap [laughs]. Um, gosh, um, it’s… Lot’s of things with Wynonna. 

BOTH : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : Pretty much anything with Wynonna. Bringing vegetables to Wynonna is…

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Uh, yeah, it’s… [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : I love… I love all of the, um, nicknames that Wynonna comes up with for Nicole. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Uh, because she doesn’t rely only on, “How do I make a pun of Nicole’s last name?”

DELAYNE : Right.

DARKWICCAN : She… she basically goes for anything and everything that… that pops into her mind. Like at one point she refers to Nicole as “Short Shorts.”

DELAYNE : [Laughs] I don’t remember that one. 

DARKWICCAN : And then immediately follows that up by calling Nicole “Jack the Giant.” [Laughs]

DELAYNE : Yes, ok. 

DARKWICCAN : At one point…

DELAYNE : I remember the giant ones.

DARKWICCAN : At one point, she… they play basketball together on the school team and at one point she calls Nicole, “Swoosh.”

BOTH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Which I can only say that word sounding like Kermit the Frog. I have no other way of saying it. 

BOTH : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : Well, that’s better than my nickname in basketball, which was “Bounce.”

DARKWICCAN : Your… [laughs]

DELAYNE : And not because anything bounced or because I was good at dribbling. It was because as soon as my tennis shoes hit the gym floor, the static electricity…

BOTH : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : would make my hair stand up on end and Bounce is a fabric softener that reduces static cling [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : That’s true. That is very true. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : I, uh, [laughs]...

DELAYNE : Swoosh!

DARKWICCAN : I didn’t have a nickname when I was playing basketball.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Um, that I’m aware of. 

BOTH : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : Probably a good thing [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : Ah, but, anyway [laughs]...

DELAYNE : Ah, yeah. I mean, really the… this whole fic, especially the coming-of-age, I mean, the… them as teenagers… It’s… It’s well-written. It’s very sophisticated. 

DARKWICCAN : Mmmhmm.

DELAYNE : But, um, you know, they’re still… they’re still teenagers [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. Yeah. 

DELAYNE : I don’t know, it just… It’s an amazing fic, and, uh…

DARKWICCAN : It’s gorgeous. It’s absolutely gorgeous. It’s… I’m sorry. I cut you off.

DELAYNE : No! No, I was stuttering off as there’s only so many ways you can say “It’s amazing, go read it!”

DARKWICCAN : Yeah.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : It is a… I love what you said. You said it was a sophisticated… It’s sophisticated in its writing and you’re absolutely right.

DELAYNE : Yes [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : But it’s sophisticated and an easy read which is a, just, chef’s kiss of a combo.

BOTH : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : It’s a… It’s a delicate balance. 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah.

DELAYNE : And it’s, you know, when it’s pulled off, it’s… Damn, it’s pulled off! [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. Well, why don’t we, uh, wrap up our stammerings here. Um, and would you look at that? It’s time to, uh…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : ...move on to our next segment, but, um, I do know, Delayne, that you actually have to step away. Unfortunately, you’re not going to join us for this… for the interview portion today.

DELAYNE : Yeah. Work got very, very busy. 

DARKWICCAN : And you know what? We need our food to be safe, so I appreciate you going to make sure that our food’s safe. 

DELAYNE : Thank you.

[CONTENT CENSORED. PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT]

MUSIC: Instrumental #2 by Gillicuddy

DARKWICCAN : Hey, everybody, and welcome back to the Earp Fiction Addiction, the podcast dedicated entirely to “Wynonna Earp” fanfiction. I am your host, Dark Wiccan, and with me is my surprise guest host, Climb!

CLIMB : Hello, everyone.

DARKWICCAN : Hey, Climb!

CLIMB : Thanks for having me. 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, thank you for stepping in. Uh, Delaney had a situation she had to, uh, monitor, uh, and had to step away for a minute, so, Climb, I appreciate you leaping into the fray with me.

CLIMB : Absolutely. Always a pleasure. 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. Always… I always love talking with you because you just love talking fic, so, like…

CLIMB : Absolutely.

DARKWICCAN : If I was gonna call on anybody, you know? [Laughs]

CLIMB : Thank you for thinking of me. 

DARKWICCAN : Absolutely. And also joining us to chat about the fic that Delayne and I were talking about in the very first segment, is the wonderful, the amazing, the delightfully folksy, harakiridaddy, a.k.a. Rafael. Rafael, welcome to the show.

RAFAEL : Thank you. That’s a really nice introduction, thank you for that [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : You are very welcome, and it is much much deserved. So, you are joining us all the way from Brazil today.

RAFAEL : Yes, that is correct. 

DARKWICCAN : Uh, so, what… What’s it been like over there in this whole world-wide situation that we’re in?

RAFAEL : Well, I think we are less bad than you guys, maybe?

DARKWICCAN : Oh, totally. Everyone’s less bad than us. 

ALL : [Laugh]

RAFAEL : But… But, yeah, we’re not… We’re not doing so well. 

DARKWICCAN : Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. 

RAFAEL : Yeah, I mean, I don’t think anywhere is doing well, so…

DARKWICCAN : Well, New Zealand. 

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : New Zealand seems to have their… their stuff together. Uh, but you’re well and healthy and safe?

RAFAEL : Yeah, I’m fine. Me and my family - we’re fine. 

DARKWICCAN : Ok, good, I’m so glad to hear that. That… That’s what’s important. Um, well, good, I… I’m glad that you guys are safe, you know, in spite of the situation, uh, and, uh, hopefully we’ll eventually start to see the light at the end of the tunnel in a few months. [Laughs] If we’re lucky. 

DARKWICCAN & RAFAEL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Sorry, I just pictured myself at home for another few months [laughs]. It just made me crack up.

CLIMB & RAFAEL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Ok, uh…

CLIMB : We’re all crying.

DARKWICCAN : We’re all crying inside a little bit here. 

CLIMB : A li’l [ph] bit.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] Uh, So, you… Now, looking at your page on, um, ao3, uh, you’ve only written two stories so far.

RAFAEL : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : And they’re both for “Wynonna Earp.” So, what… What about “Wynonna Earp” attracted you to the idea of starting to write fanfiction?

RAFAEL : That is… That is a good question and I… I’m not sure, actually, because I… When I wrote, uh, my first fic, I was really just bored, I think [laughs]. 

CLIMB & DARKWICCAN : [Laugh]

RAFAEL : And, um, so I really didn’t have anything to do and I had, like, the first paragraph of the story stuck in my head for, like, a week. And I was, like, “Oh, I don’t have anything better to do, so I’m just gonna write that down.” And, um, I think a lot of the… the reason that I kind of stayed on that, like, “Wynonna Earp” thing is because when I posted it, I didn’t really expect much from it. I’ve… I thought it was, like, oh, like, ten people are gonna read it and say, “Oh, nice job” and that’s it. And that did not happen [laughs]. 

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

RAFAEL : And people seemed to, actually, really like it, so I was, like, “Ok. This is.. This is fun. I can do that.” And, so, I think also I just… I really like “Wynonna Earp” because it’s just… It’s a really fun show and I don’t think we see a lot of that, especially when we’re talking about queer characters, I think it’s… It’s usually, like, the darker, more sinister tone. And with “Wynonna Earp” it’s… I really like that they don’t take themselves too seriously. So, yeah, I think I just… A little bit of both - I was bored and I also like “Wynonna Earp.”

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] Well, I am thrilled that you got bored enough to write, let me tell you.

DARKWICCAN & RAFAEL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Uh, yeah, because your writing is absolutely, just spectacular, um…

RAFAEL : Oh, thank you so much. 

DARKWICCAN : Oh, you’re very welcome. Uh, it’s interesting in that I actually started reading, uh, the story we’re talking about today, um, “you are a runner”, uh, before reading your first fic, uh, “on choosing one’s own name” and, um, I [unintelligible noises]

RAFAEL : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : I was just basically blown away, essentially. Like, I actually stepped away from reading “you are a runner” to read “on choosing one’s own name”. I’m not sure why or how I missed it…

RAFAEL : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Um, when it initially started posting. Um, sometimes it happens where my ao3 feed will skip a title and then it’ll show up, like, three pages down, you know, a week later, like, somebody else will bring it to my attention and I’ll be, like, “Oh, thanks! I’ll check it out.” Um, and, uh, so it is honestly one of the greatest, uh, stories of trans Waverly that I have read. There’s only a few, and, you know, there’s one other, like, gold standard that Brogurt [ph]wrote, um, and then there’s your story. 

RAFAEL : Oh, yeah.

DARKWICCAN : And, uh, they’re both so, so beautiful and, um, so unique, uh, in each approach, uh, and, so, kudos, my friend. I think your stories are stories where I wanna [ph] leave, like, a dozen kudos [laughs], but I can’t.

RAFAEL : Thank you so much. 

DARKWICCAN : You’re very welcome. I could gush about your writing all day long, so, good thing we’re here to do that, um…

DARKWICCAN & RAFAEL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : So… So turning, um, our attention to this story, um, I do have one… I’ve noticed something - There’s a trend lately to make AU Nicoles as street-smart, but not book-smart. Um, and so here in your story we have a Nicole who is surprisingly well-read on the classics, uh, knows Greek mythology, you know, knows… knows classic stories, um, but still struggles with learning in a classroom type environment. Um, what inspired this twist on her character, uh, and why do you feel a notable number of authors have given Nicole this trait of having difficulty learning in the traditional sense?

RAFAEL : Well, uh, first, like, turning to your second question, I think Nicole’s character is someone who seems to be very practical, in a way. I feel like she… I… I can’t picture her just, like, sitting down to… to study about, like, ancient history or something like that. To me, she’s someone who seems to be very into, like, physical work, she seems to be very focused on that. And she seems to be someone who will try to make the world a better place from a practical standpoint. So, I feel like that’s something that kind of influences that… that understanding of her character. And, also, I think that it’s really cool to… when we have, like, couples who are very different, so I feel like a lot of that influence is, like the fact that she is with Waverly who’s, like, a character who’s very obviously, very intelligent, who’s reading and likes languages and all of that. So having, like, this dichotomy in having a character who’s into books and then the other character is just someone who’s more practical, who’s, like, a cop, I think that’s something that’s really cool in… in this sort of story. So, I think that’s… that’s why a lot of authors go for that. And, to me, I just, I really didn’t think much about it at the time, like, she’s gonna, like, have trouble with school, or she’s not gonna struggle with this or that. Um, especially with the upbringing that I had her into, where she has friends who really, you know, don’t pay attention to her, parents who probably aren’t really worried about her going to school, if she’s doing her school work, like, reading and all of that. I think, like, she just really didn’t have this support that, uh, a kid should have in developing that and just, kind of, getting used to, you know, going to school, sitting down, studying, and going home, you know, like, she doesn’t have that sort of stability in her life. So, to me, I just pictured her as someone who’d be very fidgety, someone who would be, kind of, like, uncomfortable in… in this environment that’s, like, too formal, maybe for her. So, I just… And also because I feel like it’s important to say that there are many differences in what can be considered, like, intelligence, right? So, it’s not necessarily because she doesn’t like history or math or whatever, that’s she’s not an intelligent person, but she’s just… she likes other things. And having those… those little, like, character traits, I think, just make the character more real and more palpable, so I think it’s really interesting to just, kind of, like, have those little differences and be, like, “Oh, she enjoys doing this. She likes reading Greek mythology, but doesn’t like studying math. Or she doesn’t really like biology, but she likes botanics. So, those are things that, kind of, like, give the character a lot more texture and I think that’s really interesting. 

DARKWICCAN : Man, that’s awesome [laughs]. That is, you know, everything you just said makes so much, total sense, totally complete sense and I never would have thought of it. That’s … That’s why I love talking to authors. 

DARKWICCAN & RAFAEL : [Laugh]

CLIMB : Talking about, uh, that, and how dynamic each of the characters are and, um, how they’re so well developed in this fic, was it difficult deciding who was an adult in this fic over who would be a kid?

RAFAEL : Uh, when I was writing it, I just tried to write them into, like, three groups, which would be, like, the little kids, where it was, like, Waverly and Bobo and all that. Then you have, like, the pre-teen, the teenagers like Wynonna and Nicole. And then you have the old people who are just gonna be old for the rest of the fic. And, uh… [laughs] And, I just, I thought it was important to have these… these little groups, right? So you have Nicole with Wynonna and John Henry and Rosita and Dolls and they, to me, just, kind of, make up a very interesting dynamic. Like, between those characters, I think it was really just… It was really fun to write them interacting together. And to have Waverly separate from that dynamic was important to me because, I think especially as someone who grew up with siblings, with a twin sibling, I really have a lot of the experience of, kind of, like, trying to distance yourself from those people because you’re trying to, like, be your own person in a way. And I feel like Waverly, growing up with, uh, Wynonna, who is such a strong character who’s this person that everyone knows, and, you know, everyone hates, but everyone knows her, uh, I think, like, she would really just try to be her own person, so she would have to try to have her own friends. And, you know, her friends are not very good friends, but they are not Wynonna’s friends, so that’s… that’s good enough for her. And I… I felt like that was important because, like, the first introduction that she has is Wynonna telling Nicole, like, “Ok, like, I like Waverly. Like, she’s my sister, I love her, she’s a great person, but she doesn’t have, like, the greatest friends. She’s not surrounded by the best people.” And I wanted her to have this nuance where she kind of, like, falls back into this really, really important character trait that is just she really wants to be loved by other people. She really wants other people to care about her, so she… it’s very natural to me that she would fall back into, like, these kids who are not necessarily great kids, but just because she has them and they’re her class, and they’re her age, and they’re not Wynonna’s friends, so that’s enough for her. So… And it was actually, like, a little confusing. I… When I was writing it out, like, half of the time I was just trying to remember who was what age because it was really hard to keep up with everyone. 

ALL : [Laugh]

RAFAEL : But, um, I… I felt like it was important to have that difference, especially between Nicole and Waverly because Nicole is kind of like the grown-up in a lot of ways and she was first to, like, be more mature than a twelve year old kid should be, but she also… she is a teenager when Waverly’s still a kid, so that’s a… a very big difference. And then she’s an adult when Waverly’s still doing, you know… going to High School, so that’s a difference that is really, really important [inaudible 13:31] characters because you can see that Waverly’s still very immature, especially in the first half of the f… in the first half of the story. Like she… she’s still struggling a lot to figure out who she is and what she wants and what she likes, what she doesn’t like, so having this age difference was really just, uh, more pronounced to… to create these two different universes. Like, Nicole’s universe, which was a little more stable, you know, she has her friends, she has Nedley… She… she knows what she’s doing, she knows what she likes. And then you have Waverly’s, uh, universe, which, to me, was a little more chaotic in the sense that, you know, she doesn’t really have a lot of close friends, she has a very complicated relationship with her sister, she has a very complicated relationship with her father, so it was just a very easy way, to me, to kinda, like, build those two different worlds. 

CLIMB : Lovely. And the way that you did that and brought them all together, just is amazing. I think that’s why so many people pulled in immediately to that fic and every time it updated, there were just people that you could see that it pulled that emotion into them, and I think a lot of that is probably because, um, all fandoms, and especially Earpers, there’s such a wide range of ages, that everyone could identify somewhere along the fic with one of the characters or one of their struggles. 

RAFAEL : Yeah, especially, like, because it’s about, like, a period in our lives that’s really important and it’s, like, really character defining, so I feel like if you really want to understand the character, you kind of, like, have to focus on this period, and, like, they’re teenagers and they’re early adulthood because that’s when a person’s really, like, trying to figure out who they are and what they want and all that. So I feel like that’s kind of, like, what really defines everyone, so everyone kind of relates to that type of story in a way. 

CLIMB : Exactly.

DARKWICCAN : Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, I… I’m in early middle age at this point and I still vividly recall my teenage experience and I think that’s true for everyone [Laughs].

RAFAEL : I mean, my teen experience was, like, five years ago, but [laughs]... 

DARKWICCAN : Oh, shush.

RAFAEL : But I do, I remember it [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : Ok [laughs]. Yeah, yeah, yeah, rub it in youngin’ [ph] Ok, uh…

RAFAEL : [Laughs]

CLIMB : I’m not saying anything right here, DW, you know how old I am [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : I know, yup [laughs]. With age comes wisdom.

CLIMB : That’s right.

DARKWICCAN : Um, that’s right.

RAFAEL : Hopefully.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] Uh, in both of your stories, Rafael, you have focused on the Nedley/Nicole relationship as being a very paternal, you know, father and child type of relationship even if they’re not technically, uh, related by blood in your first story, and in your second story related by blood, but by a slight distance. Um, what is it about writing this relationship - the Nedley/Nicole relationship - that excites you the most, that makes you go, “Man, I wanna sit down and focus on these two”?

RAFAEL : Um, in a… especially, like, in “you are a runner,” I really liked writing the bantering between them. It was just really fun, to me, to kind of have imagined this little kid who’s just, like, really snarky and just calling him an old man, saying, like, “Oh, you’ve got a bald spot,” and he’s like, “Just shut up.” So, like, having these… these, like, fun little conversations that they have, in a very domestic setting, to me, that’s really interesting. And, uh, also I just… I… I’m fascinated by the relationship that you… that everyone has with their fathers because I feel like they’re always, like, not very fun and not very, uh, not always very healthy in a way, so the thing about Nedley, specifically, is that he isn’t actually her dad, right? So, even though he raises her for a very, uh, long period of her life, for twelve years she was raised by this man who she really doesn’t like and who neglected her and who abused her, so she… she tries to separate those two things and she’s like, “Oh, my father is this really bad thing that happened to me and Nedley is not that, you know? Like, he’s something else. Just Nedley.” And just try, uh… I just try to get, like, the good aspects of what I think a good father is and try to… to give those aspects to him, but due to the fact that he isn’t actually her father, and due to the fact that they have a little more, uh, dynamic relationship, so they aren’t really as stuck in the whole, “Oh, I’m your father and you’re my kid, so we have to do things this specific way, uh, it was a little more, uh, I had a little more freedom to explore, like, how this… this man, who’s, like… who’s already, like, middle-age when he finds her and when he takes care of her, how he wouldn’t have [inaudible 18:38] this relationship with this little kid who he barely knows. And I feel like he was just try… He would try to be very tender and very warm with her because that’s someone who he knows has been through a lot, so trying to, like, get those aspects of parenthood that are just, like, trying to protect your kid and trying to be warm with them, trying to keep them safe, but not have the, uh, more complicated aspects of just the authority side of things because, like, when I was writing him, I tried very hard to never have him tell her to do something, or be like, “No, you have to this, you have to do that.” He was… he’s usually, like, taking more of a guidance, uh, role where he’s just like, “Oh, I think this thing that you did was good - I think you should do that. I think it would be better for you if you chose this thing.” But he’s always very open to letting her choose her own path. So, I felt like exploring that relationship where he is her father in a very nurturer sense, but he’s also… basically, he’s a very close friend, right? Because he’s just… he knows what’s going on in her life, he talks to her everyday, he really likes her, so they have a… a.... A relationship that’s a little more flexible than what you usually have with a… a parent and kid. So I think that’s just something that I’m fascinated with and it was really interesting to explore. 

DARKWICCAN : Well, I just absolutely adore, uh, your Nedley/Nicole, um, relationship.

RAFAEL : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : And… and it is the banter. The banter between them is so, uh, delightfully casual and endearing, uh, while still being weighted, you know, with something deeper, with a deeper emotion, um and that’s a pretty thing to capture on the page, uh, so just further speaks to your amazing, uh, craftsmanship as an author. Uh, so [laughs] thank you. And please continue to keep writing that story…

DARKWICCAN & RAFAEL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : The story of Nedley and Nicole type stuff because I just eat it up every single time you write it.

RAFAEL : Oh, thank you so much. I… I really enjoy writing banter, it’s just really fun for me, so usually, like, writing Nicole and Nedley and Nicole with Wynonna is just, like, my favorite parts of every chapter because it’s just… it’s so much fun. 

DARKWICCAN : Well, we enjoy it, too. 

RAFAEL : [Laugh]

CLIMB : Uh, Nicole’s connection with plants and her gardening skills seem to go deeper than just giving her a hobby. Was this your intention from the start, or did its roots grow that way on their own?

RAFAEL : Uh, I… just to get it out there, I don’t plan things, usually [laughs], so I didn’t plan, like, anything for this story. And, uh, I was writing the second chapter and I was like, “Ok, this is a kid who hasn’t really ever had the space to have her own thing, right? She never really had a hobby, she… she didn’t really do much because her parents are just, like, sitting there and being weird and she… she doesn’t really know what she likes, what she doesn’t like, what she wants to do.” So, I felt like it was important when she starts living with Nedley that he would go out of his way to be like, “No, I need you to find something that you like and I need you go engage in that because I don’t want you to just sit inside the house counting things all day. That… that’s weird.” And, so, I felt like she needed to have, like, something that was very hers. And when I was thinking about what I could… what that could be, I wanted it to be something that was a little more physical, so something that she could really just do with her hands and all that because I feel like that’s a very important part of her character. I feel like she… she, you know, she likes rock climbing, so I don’t feel like she would sit around and knit all day. I feel… I think she likes to, kind of, like, do things where you’re, like, building something or constructing something, you can see what you’re doing. And gardening, to me, is just something that’s very nuanced in the sense that it can be very tender and a very soft thing where you’re just taking care of these little things and you’re trying to get them to grow, but at the same time, you know, you can… it can be a lot of work, especially when she actually, like, starts working with it, you can see that it’s something that’s exhausting. It’s something that’s really tiring and she’s actually, like, doing a lot, and she’s getting tired by it and I feel like that’s the kind of job that she would enjoy, like, these things that you get home at the end of the day, like, really tired and exhausted, so it just… it made sense to me and it was, uh, and easy choice because this… this is a story about her growing up and it’s a story about Waverly growing up, as well, so it was just a very [laughs] classic metaphor on growth, which is, you know, having a garden, and, um, I feel like she, as someone who comes from a very unstable home, and who doesn’t really know, like… She gets… she arrives in Nedley’s house and she doesn’t know that she’s gonna live with him, like, for the rest of her… of her early years, you know? She… she kinda thinks that at any time he’s going to just tell her to go back to her parents, so I felt like she should have something that’s, uh, very related to knowledge because I feel like that’s the only thing that’s constant in her life - it’s just the knowledge that we… that we have. And, so, I wanted her to… to not only enjoy gardening, but she also read about it and learn about it and be like, “Ok, I know what… what light is for. I know what the earth does. I know what this plant likes, I know what that plant likes.” So that she would have this thing that even if she wasn’t living with Nedley, and she didn’t have her garden anymore, which, you know, at the end of the story, she doesn’t, but she still has the knowledge and she’s gonna take it somewhere else. It’s still her thing, it’s still something that’s very close to her heart and it’s still something that she can do wherever she goes because she has that knowledge. So, it was just really this, like… a lot of factors went into it, but at first I really didn’t think it would be as much of a… of a thing as it became. Uh, I didn’t even realize there were people who were, like, saying that it was the “gardener fic”, or the “garden fic”. I didn't think that was a thing. And then people started talking about it on Twitter, and I was like, “Oh, so that’s, you know… it’s an important part of the story, isn’t it?” I just realized, like, midway through. But, uh, but it was really interesting. It was very organic the way that it, kind of, like, entangled itself in the story, but it made sense, I think.

CLIMB : Well, I love that. I think that that is one of the things that any writer, as they get into a fic, they find out that, um, the characters are developing their own interests, they have their own sphere of experience and they’re just asking us to, kind of, pull that into the story. And it was beautiful the way that you did that.

RAFAEL : Thank you so much. 

DARKWICCAN : Also, I love the fact that, uh, your gardening started out as, uh, the story… the gardening within the story started out as a, a sort of a metaphor and then [laughs] organically became this larger thing because…

CLIMB & RAFAEL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah [makes comic drum hit noise] Yeah, ok, sorry.

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Ah, sorry, sorry, guys. I apologize. I’ll see myself out later. Uh, so, um, you’ve written a pair of spectacular coming-of-age stories. I, uh, I touched on this earlier in the segment. Um, you’ve got the, uh, trans Waverly story and then this story with Nicole as the centerpoint. What draws you to writing this classic, uh, I’m gonna call it a “trope” or genre?

RAFAEL : Um, I think a lot of it’s just, like, I’m… what… how do you say it? I’m coming-of-age [laughs]. Um, I’m twenty-one, so I… I’m kind of, like, in this very strange, little, uh, moment in my life where, um, I’m kind of a baby, I’m kind of an adult, so I’m really just starting to figure things out and, uh, I think… for everyone, I think, uh, growing up is very scary, so writing about that feels very natural to me because a lot of the, uh, the fears and the frustrations that I write about are things that I have experienced or things that I’m feeling. And, uh, I feel like it’s just… both stories felt like character studies to me in the sense that they’re very… there’s a lot of internal thought into them, so there’s a lot of, you know, how they’re feeling, what they’re thinking. And, uh, to write that in a way that made sense to me just, kinda… I had to write about them becoming who they were, or them… them becoming that character. And that’s coming-of-age stories are really just, to me, they’re the best way to do that where you… you’re telling the reader the things that have happened to make this character who they are and to explain their choices and why they do the things they do. So, um, having this… especially with “you are a runner”, like, having this stretch that I did with starting with her, like, really young at twelves and going, like, all the way, to early adulthood, for me, it was just because I really wanted, uh, the readers to really understand that character and know, like, know how she thinks and what… why she does the things she does. And why she likes, you know… why she likes Waverly, even they have, like, such a complicated relationship, especially at the, uh, first few chapters. Why she… she enjoys gardening so much. So, I feel like with writing the coming-of-age and writing the her growing up, just, it makes her make sense and I think that it’s something that everyone can relate to because we’ve all been through that, you know, we’ve all been through High School and we all have made friends and lost friends and moved to different cities and went to University and all that and those are things that I think have a lot of impact in the rest of your life. So, I feel like it’s just this very interesting point in peoples’ lives and I just, I think it’s very, uh, interesting to write about it.

DARKWICCAN : Well, yeah, it is. I mean, um, again, as Climb touched on earlier, it’s a point in time that everybody has very vivid, uh, memories of and everyone has a very strong relationship to that… that, I should say, turning point, in their lives, so, um, it is definitely a… a, um, subject that is ripe for exploration. And, uh, gosh, I… I… I hope you continue to write coming-of-age stories, um, because the way that you approach them is so unique and, um, different and beautiful.

RAFAEL : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : And, uh, even when you’re tackling the scary stuff, so, um… ‘Cause as you say, getting older, you know, becoming an adult, is scary enough as it is, but you also throw in some other scary elements, too…

RAFAEL : [Laughs]

CLIMB : Right. That’s exactly what I was gonna say, DW. It’s not just the typical, uh, growing up experience that I think a lot of kids have, either, because there’s some very serious topics in this, uh, fic, and, uh, what was the… What was it that made you tackle the child abuse and neglect that Nicole edured? What… Why did you decide to put that into the fic?

RAFAEL : Uh, I… I didn’t actually know that I was going to write that because, like, very much like my first fic, the second, I just had the first scene in my head, and I was like, “Ok, I’m gonna start writing it down.” And, so, I just knew that she would be a little kid and she would show up at Nedley’s house, but I didn’t know why [laughs]. And I started writing it and it was getting into, like, the more complicated stuff, and they were actually, like, having a conversation and he asked her, like, “Why are you here?” Like, ok, now I gotta… Now I gotta think about it, which I don’t like doing, but I… I really just, uh, wanted to have a character with a lot of nuance. And someone… Especially because I feel like her character in the show is very, um, I… I don’t wanna say, like, one-dimensional, but one-dimensional [laughs], uh, in the sense that, you know, she… she’s very perfect, right? She doesn’t really have a lot of stuff going on that you can really see, like, her being frustrated or her being scared and she’s just… she’s very stable. Uh, so I think it’s interesting to explore how this character would, uh, take care of themselves and how this character would react if they were put into a universe where they don’t have that, so it was just, to me, it was really, um, it was really hard, but it was also really, uh, good to me, as a writer, to get this character who’s kind of known for being perfect and for being, like, really put together and write them in a way that they are not, you know? Like, she’s very nervous all the time, she’s very fidgety, she’s very anxious, she doesn’t really know how to behave with, uh, school and with people, you know, she’s very awkward, and those are things that you don’t really see on the show. And, uh, when I thought about why she would be that way, it just made sense to me that, uh, that it would be because of her parents. And then I just kinda, like, had to think about why and what was their relationship like? And, um, I wanted that to be a thing that was discussed and it was talked about because I feel like we underestimate, sometimes, the, uh, the impact our parents have on us and, uh, the way they really shape the people that we’re going to be, so I… I kinda, like, had her father be this constant reminder, you know, like, she’s always thinking about him, she’s always, like, feeling like he’s there, he’s watching her. When she’s nervous she feels like, you know, she feels his presence. Because that’s… for twelve years, his presence was the… the one thing that she had, you know? Like, all of her life, up to that point, was just him. And he, not being a good parent, and he… he, uh, using drugs and he neglecting her, and he abusing her, and I wanted to talk about that because I feel that’s something that should be talked about. We don’t talk about it enough. It’s just that, there are a lot of really bad parents out there and when we talk about bad parenting, I think, sometimes, we just talk about, like, everyday, like, “Oh, this, you know, normal parents making mistakes.” Which, you know, of course, happens because, uh, everyone makes mistakes, right? But in her, uh, story, I had the opportunity to write this character who’s very profoundly marked by her parents and who cannot forget about that and she can’t just move on from that. So, having her have this really complicated past and having her have these really complicated parents, was just a way of getting this perfect character and giving them a completely different, uh, reality and discussing something, which I feel is… not only is it, like, uh, something that’s really worth exploring, which, you know, is our relationship with our parents and how complicated parents can be and how that reality that I wrote about is complicated, but, um, uh, try to, uh, write about how that impacted her, specifically and how she feels with it and how that makes her grow into the person that she is.

DARKWICCAN : Man, we could talk about this for hours [inaudible 35:48] [laughs]

CLIMB : I know. I know, that’s exactly what I was thinking. Give me a flawed Nicole any day.

DARKWICCAN : Man! Yeah, absolutely. Any day and every day, I love me a flawed Nicole. Uh, so much more to dig into. I mean, ‘cause, yes, she has made mistakes on the show, cough cough, secret wife, cough cough, uh…

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Cough cough, DNA results, cough cough. Uh, but, uh [laughs]... Uh, but, yeah, you’re… she is essentially kind of a perfect character, you know, beyond these couple of fumbles. Um, and, uh, although I’m sure I’ll get people tweeting at me going, “The secret wife was not a fumble,” or something like that.

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : But, [laughs] that was a, you know, big whoopsie [ph]. Like, yes, it was. Uh, but, uh, but really, you know, you’re right, Rafael, on the larger scope of things, you know, she’s, uh, she’s kind of perfect and that can get kinda boring, so I… I really do appreciate you, um, giving her a… a rougher kind of start and… and being willing to allow her to… to stumble around a bit more and… and make some bigger mistakes. Uh, it’s just so much fun to read and you’re so good at it.

RAFAEL : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Um, but, unfortunately, we have run out of time and we can’t chat for this… chat about this for hours and hours! Uh, so I must, ugh [ph], regretfully wrap us up. Uh, we do, of course, have one last question for ya [ph]. Climb, I give you the honors.

CLIMB : It is an honor. You’re stranded on a desert island and have only one fic to read. What is it?

RAFAEL : [Laughs] Can I… can I… can I pick, a, uh, fic writer instead of a… instead of a fic?

DARKWICCAN : Well, I know who you’re gonna pick as far as the writer goes…

RAFAEL : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : So, you do need to narrow it down to one story of theirs.

RAFAEL : I’m not gonna pick a story of their’s, actually. I was, uh… I remember when I was a teenager and it was the very first fanfic I ever read. And it was not actually… it was from “Glee,” which is very embarrassing.

DARKWICCAN : Oh, that’s ok.

RAFAEL : But it was from “Glee” [laughs] and, uh, I’m not sure if it was actually good ‘cause it was, you know, a few years ago, but, uh, I remember that everyday I got home from school and I would sit at the computer and see if it had updated. And it’s like… it’s this one story that really stuck to me and, you know, it was about coming-of-age and it’s called, uh, “I’ve Never Reached An Answer, I’m Only Given Clues.” And I’m not even sure if it’s still out there, uh, maybe it doesn’t exist anymore, but, um, I would take that, to check if it was actually good, because I feel like it wasn’t [laughs]. I was just, like, twelve years old, so I didn’t really know better. But, uh, yeah, that. I think that… that fic really marked me in terms of just this kind of story. 

DARKWICCAN : Any idea who wrote it?

RAFAEL : Nope! No idea!

DARKWICCAN : Ok, so I got a little bit of sleuthing to do.

RAFAEL : [Laughs] Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Uh, well, I will put on my, um, my, oh, gosh, what’s the hat that Sherlock wears? The freakin’ hat? You know, the weird hat.

RAFAEL : I have no idea.

CLIMB : No clue.

DARKWICCAN : Ok.

CLIMB : I call it the Sherlock Holmes cap.

CLIMB & RAFAEL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, it’s… it’s got an actual name, though. Ok, well, I might cut this out and make myself sound smarter, but until then, I will say that I’ve gotta put on my Sherlock Holmes hat. Deer hunter! Deer hunter hat, there we go.

CLIMB : Right.

DARKWICCAN : And, uh, [laughs] I’m gonna go onto the interwebs and see if I can track down this story, “I’ve Never Reached An Answer, I’m Only Given Clues”. It’s a “Glee” fic. 

RAFAEL : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : Once I find that fic, and, uh, I’m able to link it, I’ll provide the link in our show notes for this episode. Rafael, a.k.a. harakiridaddy, thank you so much for joining us today and please get back to work and write us some more spectacular fic.

MUSIC: Don’t Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Maddigan

DARKWICCAN: And that's all for this episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Thanks for joining us.

Tremendous thanks to Harakiridaddy for chatting with us about their work!

  
  


Thanks also to our announcer Byron Tidwell for our intro 

Background music for the episode was:

A Proper Story by Darren Korb

Undiscovered Waters by Alec Holowka

Instrumental #2 by Gillicuddy

and the outro music is Don't Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Madigan

  
  


If you have questions or comments for the podcast you can find us on Twitter at E-F-A underscore Podcast and on Facebook at E-F-A Podcast. 

And you can find all of our episodes, old and new, at our website E-F-A Podcast dot com.

And if you're listening on iTunes, please take a moment to rate and review our show.

  
  


Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you'll join us again next time for another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Until then, READ MORE FIC!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Episodes post Mondays at 8am PST
> 
> Visit our Website http://efapodcast.com/ for all episodes old and new!
> 
> Follow us on Twitter: @efa_podcast
> 
> And on Facebook: facebook.com/EFAPodcast


	11. Discovering Me, Discovering You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This week on the show DW is again joined by guest co-host Climb as they discuss Teapet's delightful high school AU!

[Click HERE to Listen!](http://efapodcast.com/discovering-me-discovering-you)

Read the Fic!

####  [The Truth Is Now](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17908679) by [TeaPet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaPet/pseuds/TeaPet)

Episode artwork by: Chantal Zeegers

This Week's Reverse Sponsor is: Olivia Joy Taylor!

Teapet's Desert Island Fic Selection is:

####  [Then and Again](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16030634) by [loveisgravity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveisgravity/pseuds/loveisgravity)

Episode Transcript by ApproxTenCats

Ep 411: Discovering Me, Discovering You

[ph] – Indicates preceding word has been spelled phonetically

[sic] – Indicates preceding word has been transcribed verbatim

MUSIC : Write My Story by Olly Anna

ANNOUNCER GUY : You've tuned in to the  _ Earp Fiction Addiction _ , a fan podcast all about  _ Wynonna Earp _ fanfiction. Join our intrepid host DarkWiccan and Delayne as they dive deep into the sometimes sweet, sometimes spicy, and always varied world of fanfiction for the  _ Wynonna Earp _ fandom.

MUSIC : A Proper Story by Darren Korb

DARKWICCAN:  Thanks Announcer Guy and welcome everybody to another episode of the  _ Earp Fiction Addiction _ , the podcast dedicated entirely to  _ Wynonna Earp _ fanfiction. I am your host DarkWiccan, and with me is my very, very, very special guest co-host--

CLIMB: That’s a lot of verys, I don’t know if I can live up to that.

DARKWICCAN: I think you can, I think you can. Tell the folks who you are though.

CLIMB: I go by Climb but my user is @comelayinmybed.

DARKWICCAN: Alrighty, and we had you kinda hop into the co-host spot at last minute last episode and I appreciate you doing that. I was so enamoured with your work that I was like, “hey you know what? Come back for another one.” [laughs]

CLIMB: Well, I appreciate that. Hopefully in this little bit of an extended format we can see what kind of a rapport there is and I’m really excited to talk about fic, and always to talk to the authors as well.

DARKWICCAN: Oh yes, absolutely. And we have got a spectacular story to chat about today. [CONTENT CENSORED. PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT] Okay, we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk fic. Now, what’s your general opinion of high school AUs Climb?

CLIMB: They are honestly not my favourite, and I don’t know if it has to do specifically with my age, or a lot of times to me I feel like it’s a limited experience and the further you get away from it in your own life it’s harder to reconnect with the characters and the things that they’re going through. Having said that some of my absolute favourite fics like the 80s AU and everything start in high school and they are fantastic. There are some amazing high school AUs out there so I really should say on the case by case basis… I adore them.

DARKWICCAN: [laughs] Yeah, you know it’s kind of the same for me. It’s interesting how many high school AUs tend to pop up in any fandom’s fic-dom. And it’s no different here. I think that it really gives authors an opportunity to sort of deep dive into the before with characters, the before of what their life was like before we met them on screen. And that’s true whether you’re writing a true AU or a canon adjacent AU. It’s an opportunity to get into the heads of these characters and see what ma kes them them prior to adulthood. And it’s interesting in that sometimes I’ll be reading a high school AU and going, “um, okay, yeah, I guess I could see that but I don’t see how they matured from that person there to the person we know.” But that doesn’t mean that steps didn’t happen somewhere. And then there are times when I’ll read an AU and I’ll be like, “man, they are nailing it.” [laughs]

CLIMB: Absolutely. Yes.

DARKWICCAN: They are nailing it. This is totally who this person was when they were a little human. Before they became an adult human. And I think that this story, the story that we are talking about today is an example of that. And that is the story by the delightful author Teapet,  _ The Truth Is Now _ . It is currently unfinished high school AU at 14 chapters and 76,000 words, give or take a few hundred, and it is a delightful exploration of both Waverly and Nicole as high school students. I particularly love the Nicole here is a comic book fan.

CLIMB: And graphic novels too, I think that comic books have such a generic overview to a lot of people. For the  _ Wynonna Earp _ fandom specifically there are so many great graphic novels out there, and when she really starts to get into those and see how they’re written in such a parallel way to her life, with all of those illustrations, especially when it comes back later in the fic somewhat. And how it also influences Waverly.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, yeah. I love that-- and you’re absolutely right Climb, Nicole does read comics but she reads graphic novels primarily and that is a different breed of visual storytelling. And I’ve really gotta do a shout-out to Teapet for the selections of books that she’s reading, that Nicole’s reading in the story. I believe the first graphic novel we’re made aware of Nicole reading in the story is Alison Bechdel’s  _ Fun Home _ , and I was jarred, I was like, “oh my god.” Now that book came out when I was well into adulthood, aging myself, cough cough. But still it had a similar effect on me when I was reading it than it had on Nicole and I could completely relate to that. Have you read that?

CLIMB: I have not.

DARKWICCAN: Oh, I highly recommend it.

CLIMB: I’m very familiar with it but I have not read it.

DARKWICCAN: And super quick DW tangent, I’m sure most of our listeners are aware because I am a musical theatre freak, that  _ Fun Home _ was ultimately adapted into a Tony Award winning musical based on the original material, and it is a fantastic, fantastic show and I highly recommend you should check out the soundtrack on Spotify. But first read the book. So what was it about this story, Climb, that really hooked you? Because when I first approached you and said, “hey, do you wanna come in and chat about this story,” you got really excited. So why? Why’d you get excited?

CLIMB: I think the big thing that speaks to me throughout the fic, but by the time I had gotten to the second chapter, and again going back to my I’m-not-really-into-high-school-AUs, when this work first started posting I had several people say, “oh have you read this new fic? It’s great.” And I’m, “eh, I’m not into high school AUs, I’m not really…” And Lucky, @Luckywantstoknow, everybody who listens to the podcast I’m sure knows Lucky. She just kept sending me the links, “you really need to read this, you really need to read this.” And I got to the end of the second chapter, I think it was Saturday night and there’s just a very intimate moment that Nicole has in her realisation of what she’s becoming as a young adult and how she’s starting to grow and understand her feelings, and that just constantly reverberated through the fic for me. Whether it was Waverly learning about her family and her history, or her feelings towards her cheerleading squad, or her feelings towards Champ. Everything was so incredibly visceral and personal, it makes you feel like you are that 17/18 year old and that’s what’s always going to draw me into a fic. I want to feel like I’m that character when I’m experiencing the story as a whole. And once that moment happened with Nicole, and I believe it was the end of the second chapter, possibly the third, I just was pulled in and it has grown from there. I think when a writer starts at a point and they grasp that moment for the characters, both Waverly and Nicole in this fic. They just grow. The writer grows and the reader grows and the story grows and that’s one reason when you asked me I was so excited, because this is such a good opportunity for-- especially I think new writers to come in and say, “oh, this is how you make an audience identify and love something that they didn’t know that they wanted or needed beforehand.”

DARKWICCAN: Yes, yeah, absolutely. Beautifully said. Beautifully said. You pretty much hit the nail on the head of what got my attention in reading the story as well. It’s very, as you say, visceral. You feel the story in your gut. And it is so relatable I think. A lot of times there’s this tendency in some high school AUs in particular to really lean in to the angst of being a teenager, and what I like about this story is that Teapet manages-- she surfs the angst, she surfs it, she’s right on that edge of the wave but she doesn’t give in to it. Everything feels very authentic and it’s not overwrought.

CLIMB: Exactly.

DARKWICCAN: I also love the dichotomy of Waverly’s family versus Nicole’s family and how-- because I mean this is definitely a canon adjacent story, we are building up to essentially what would become the series of the show, with changes of course in that we have a Nicole already present, and a Jeremy already present, and a Robin. These characters who in the show we only meet ten years down the line after high school’s finished, here we have them in the same time all together, so that is different. But in other things, I was very surprised to see elements of the supernatural creeping into the storyline that I didn’t expect. You typically don't see that in a high school AU, that’s just set aside completely. There are a few exceptions of course, this being one of them, and I think the way that Teapet weaves the supernatural elements into the storytelling here is very organic, and makes total sense for Waverly and her curiosity. 

CLIMB: Yes, exactly, that’s what I noticed immediately. It’s not something that I think a lot of writers hit you over the head with the, “this is canon and it’s going to be about Revenants and the curse and things like that. Correct me if i’m wrong, I don’t think the curse is mentioned at any point up to chapter 14 where we are at right now. Which shows you the incredible delicacy that Teapet has gone to build the supernatural, and I completely agree with you, I thought that was genius how she wrote it in. Because it’s not the focus of the story but it makes it canon.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, it’s basically the B plot to the A plot of the story of Waverly and Nicole. And I think you’re right, that does sound right, the word curse doesn’t come up until the most recent chapter. But otherwise it’s more of Waverly is trying to learn more about the whisperings and the ravings that she heard from her father and from Wynonna before her father and her sister were killed and before Wynonna was shipped off, or chose to leave. So in this case she has chosen to leave. But she wants to understand, how did we get here? How did we get to this point? What really happened that night, on the Homestead. And I love the fact that it all starts with not only with Waverly’s sort of general curiosity but also a sort of, you will recall what should have been a casual trip to the Homestead, just sort of like, “oh we’re in the neighbourhood, while we jog on by, haven’t been there in a long time, just curious about it,” and that initial feeling of unease like something’s not right there. I just like that feeling of creeping terror that Teapet very lightly, almost with a watercolour, brushes into the beginning of Waverly’s search for answers.

CLIMB: Right, and the fact that because Waverly doesn’t know the weight of them even being at the Homestead at this point it kind of builds the fear factor into it for us as well because we’re going into it the same way that Waverly is, and we don’t have any comprehension of, other than what we’ve seen in canon, of what’s gonna actually be there in that home. Especially after she had spent the time doing research and starting to question where everything was coming from, it’s just that constant nagging in the back of her mind. As you said Teapet slowly pushes us all through that entrance into the homestead and it kind of just washes over you that uncertainty. Which i think would be so much more jarring as a teenager, because for all intents and purposes Waverly has a great life. Gus and Curtis have built a great life for her and she’s worked very hard to have all the things that she wants. So to have something on the periphery of her life just come back in a stark contrast like that when they walk into the homestead is, I agree, was supernaturally mesmerising almost.

DARKWICCAN: Nice, nice, yes definitely. A wonderful description, yeah, absolutely. And so we do have that element in the story. Now of course this is a Wayhaught romance, and it’s a tiny-ish bit of a slow burn. For me there are two different approaches to a slow burn. There’s the agonising crawl where the author’s doing everything in their power to get them oh so close, oh so close, oh they’re interrupted, oh something gets in the way, oh something comes up. And then there is sort of the natural-order-of-things slow burn, where it naturally takes time for these two characters to recognise their feelings for each other and to act on them. And that is the case here with  _ The Truth Is Now _ , the very natural order of things, it doesn’t feel like a forced separation keeping these two apart from each other and apart from giving in to their true feelings. It just feels like a natural self discovery like a lot of us had when we were teenagers. And also gives us something that most of us didn’t have as teenagers which is the teenage romance, you don’t see that a lot in the real life experience of most queer people of a certain age.

CLIMB: Right?

DARKWICCAN: Right? So that’s really nice, to be able to-- to experience something through the aid of something else, whatever that word is, you know what I’m trying to say?

CLIMB: I do.

DARKWICCAN: You know we’re both drawing blanks, it’s okay. It happens to the best of us. But, that word, it’s very much like that. So Nicole knows who she is, much like in the canon television show, she knows that she’s gay. Whereas Waverly of course takes a little longer to figure out that she’s in the very least she’s interested in the same sex.

CLIMB: At the very least, yes.

DARKWICCAN: At the very least.

CLIMB: The very least.

DARKWICCAN: But also I like the fact that Waverly is more experienced than Nicole as far as expressing herself in a intimate way, or sexual way, and so when we get to that shift in the dynamic of their relationship from being sort of sweet lovey dovey kissy kissy puppy love-ish, when we get to the shift of that dynamic it’s Waverly who drives the shift because she’s more-- she has the experience. Not with another woman of course, but just the experience of being intimate with another person. So, I like that, I like that they’re both guiding each other. We’ve got Nicole guiding her through the self discovery of being queer in some way and we’ve got a Waverly guiding Nicole through the physical aspect of what an adult relationship, or more adult relationship, looks like.

CLIMB: Yeah, I thought that that was a great coin flip that Teapet did. She, to me, overall did that with both the characters because Nicole is usually written as very outgoing and very self assured and very, not to be cliche, but out and proud. And while Nicole absolutely knows who she is she’s not out to anyone, not even Jeremy who I would consider in this fic her best friend. And to have someone like Waverly who constantly through the fic says, “well it doesn’t matter if she’s gay to her friends,” or “it doesn’t matter to me who sees us.” And using her past, as you said, intimate experience to look inside herself, Waverly, to look inside herself and see, “oh this is the same way that I felt about boys,” or Champ, or what have you. “And this I can also understand towards Nicole,” but yet I would say because it’s Nicole it’s an even deeper intimate feeling. And it’s being in that safe space with each other that allows them to really explore that. And so to me it’s so-- something I so rarely see in fic, where as you said it’s a slow burn but it’s not a slow burn in which the writer is keeping them apart or barely having them spend any time together. Because I do think in a lot of the fic they do spend time together, it is their respect and care for one another that spends that graduated time together to really form a deeper relationship. And make them both aware and able to grasp the changes that that’s going to entail for their lives. 

DARKWICCAN: Yes, absolutely. They have such respect for each other. And they’re so careful with each other, and it’s funny in that I feel like they think they’re both protecting the other one. And that is just so sweet and delightful, and honest as well I think. And I also have to say that one thing that I’ve spoken about, and my other co-host Laragh and Delayne have talked about in past episodes with high school stories is that there’s this careful line that a writer has to walk to make sure they aren’t making their characters too mature [laughs]. Because there is a degree of emotional maturity that really doesn’t happen for us as humans until we’re in our mid to late twenties, and I think a lot of times the high school characters, especially in media, tend to be written with that level of maturity that just doesn’t exist.

CLIMB: Exactly.

DARKWICCAN: So I think that Teapet captures just enough of that sort of precocious maturity to make it acceptable and not like, okay, that’s not the way the teenager functions.

CLIMB: That’s not, no.

DARKWICCAN: While also being able to capture the uncertainty and the second guessing and the sort of reaching for answers that a lot of teenagers go through and experience, whether they’re coming to terms with who they are as far as who they’re attracted to sexually or who they’re attracted to gender-wise or just who are they going to be as an adult, like what’s laying the groundwork for the adult version of them. And so I think that Teapet again really captured that really well. And another thing that I liked is the fact that we see the support systems in both Waverly and Nicole’s lives and how very different because they are different people. It’s not a cookie cutter parent situation. We’ve got Nicole’s parents who are very cool, trying to be the cool parents.

CLIMB: Very cool.

DARKWICCAN: Like, “hey man, love is love,” kind of thing. And I love how her father keeps trying to trip her up into confessing that she’s gay.

CLIMB: Yes, that’s exactly what I was going to say, is this a girl or is this a... girl? Are you going to a party or are you going with a… girl?

DARKWICCAN: Yes, exactly, like he’s trying to say, “listen this is a safe space you know, you can tell us.” And I just think it’s so interesting that Nicole is like, “yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah leave me alone.” [laughs]

CLIMB: Exactly.

DARKWICCAN: And with Waverly Gus of course being the hard edge, but loving and affectionate anyway, the true kind of gruff persona. And Curtis who-- you know I just-- when it comes to Curtis there is one actor that always comes to mind. I’ve said this before on the podcast, I think it was back in season one, that whenever I picture Curtis I picture Burl Ives, who was this really-- he was a popular kind of folk singer, popular folk singer in the fifties and the sixties. And he did a lot of stuff with Disney, but I think most people know his voice from is the song  _ Holly Jolly Christmas _ . [singing] It’s a holly jolly Christmas--

CLIMB: Yes.

DARKWICCAN: So if you take that voice, take it from his singing voice to his speaking voice, that’s what I hear whenever I read a Curtis, anybody's Curtis, that’s what I read.

CLIMB: Yes, that voice, that voice, that makes perfect sense to me, absolutely. He does fit that role very well.

DARKWICCAN: Right? Because you just kind of get this very paternal, protective, teddy bear, good, salt of the earth guy, image. And that is the image that Teapet has captured here where we’ve got Gus with all her sharp edges, we’ve got soft and gentle Curtis who also is very protective of Waverly. I mean he takes her out shooting for the first time.

CLIMB: Shotgun Waverly.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, shotgun Waverly. [shotgun sound] Cha-chuck.

CLIMB: The birth of shotgun Waverly.

DARKWICCAN: Yes. We have this Curtis to thank for that and so it’s just really nice seeing the two homes that Nicole and Waverly are both coming from, and how they really are both very safe, nurturing environments and how both of them, just I think how most teenagers do, feel like they have to keep secrets from their parents, and even though they know their parents are on to something, I should say in Waverly’s case her caretakers, are onto something about her, which in Nicole’s case is her sexuality and in Waverly’s case it’s the interest in her family’s history, they’re like, “oh it’s got to be a secret, they can’t ever know.”

CLIMB: It’s got to be a secret. They can’t know. What would they think? Which is very true to the teenager mentality as you said.

DARKWICCAN: Oh yeah, absolutely. 

CLIMB: Because it doesn’t matter how great any of our parents were, or sadly how horrible some of our parents were, we definitely don’t want them to know. We don’t want them to know.

DARKWICCAN: No, we don’t want them to know, [emotional teenager voice] they can’t know because this is not anything they can understand, they’ve never been a teenager. 

CLIMB: Never.

DARKWICCAN: They would not understand what I’m going through right now so I can’t tell them because it would be like talking to a wall.

CLIMB: Talking to a wall. They would never understand me.

DARKWICCAN: Or the worst case, they’d throw me out, or something. They’d forbid me from, fill in the blank something. [laughs]

CLIMB: I did think talking about Curtis and Gus, the little aside that Gus has where she talks to Nicole and she’s like, “so Waverly needs a really good friend, she needs somebody who’s going to take care of her.” And I feel like it goes back to canon Gus who sees things from a mile away and doesn’t say anything to the person but she’s immediately, “oh, this is what Waverly needs.” And Curtis sees it in a different way, but it’s like you said Waverly’s immediate I don’t want to talk to you about this, I don’t want to talk to you about that, but sometimes I need you to tell me this, give me this information.

DARKWICCAN: Yes.

CLIMB: It’s so well done in this fic with Gus and Curtis and Waverly’s home life. I feel like Nicole gets a little bit shafted, as cool as her parents are they’re really not involved in her life. 

DARKWICCAN: No, they’re not.

CLIMB: They’re only involved in what they want for her.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, exactly. I mean her parents are supportive but they’re also-- it’s weird, it’s this weird kind of mix of being supportive and wanting to be involved but at the same time being hands off and I’m not going to say neglectful, her parents are not neglectful.

CLIMB: No, absolutely not.

DARKWICCAN: Because her parents in this story actually remind me a lot of my parents, in that my parents were incredibly supportive and wanted to cheer me on in whatever kind of thing I wanted to tackle. But at the same time they were very hands off in that no she’s gotta figure this out for herself, no she needs to find her own way. Even to the point that I was very much a latch key kid which I have a feeling that Nicole here is also a latch key kid growing up, where her parents would be gone for a period of time. My parents didn’t take off on trips or anything like that but my parents definitely were totally cool leaving me home alone at a very young age, knowing that I wasn’t going to get into any sort of dire trouble, and that if I needed something I would have to figure it out and that I had the capability of doing so. And I feel like that’s the same with Nicole’s parents here. 

CLIMB: Yes.

DARKWICCAN: Well, you know what, let us wrap this up and move along to our second segment where we actually get to chat with Teapet and get to know a bit more of their thought processes of writing this spectacular story. Again it is currently unfinished at 14 chapters, a little over 76,000 words, but in my opinion an easy read. I think.

CLIMB: Oh yeah, it does go really quickly, it does. And I’m so excited to talk to Teapet about this.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, absolutely, so let’s do that. [CONTENT CENSORED. PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT]

[MUSIC] This Is Everything (Instrumental Version) by Josh Woodward

  
  


DARKWICCAN: And welcome back everybody to the  _ Earp Fiction Addiction _ , the podcast dedicated entirely to  _ Wynonna Earp _ fanfiction. I am your host DarkWiccan and with me remains my delightful co-host--

CLIMB: This is Climb. Thanks for having me again.

DARKWICCAN: Yes. And we’re thrilled to have you again. And this has been a lot of fun chatting about this story with you today.

CLIMB: It’s been exciting and I’m super excited to talk to the guest.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, let’s introduce the guest, the author of the wonderful story  _ The Truth Is Now _ which we were discussing in the first segment, Teapet. Teapet welcome to the show

TEAPET: Thank you so much, I’m so glad to be here.

DARKWICCAN: We are thrilled to have you. I mean, gosh we couldn’t stop gushing about the story. We were doing our own mini deep dive of adoration in the previous segment. This is unique in that this is your only fanfiction so far, that I can tell.

TEAPET: Yeah, that’s right.

DARKWICCAN: Wow, what a way to break onto the scene. My gosh. It’s so good Teapet, it’s so amazingly good.

TEAPET: Thank you, it’s so nice of you.

DARKWICCAN: I’m just being honest. I’m just being honest with you. Yeah, it’s like one thing that Climb and I touched on previously is that for both of us high school AUs are usually kind of hit and miss. We’re generally kind of wary of what we’re going to get into. Of course there are notable exceptions, and yours is definitely a notable exception. It is just so well done. 

TEAPET: Thank you, I’m just smiling so hard right now.

DARKWICCAN: Excellent, I’m glad to hear it. I want your face to hurt from grinning. What inspired you to sit down and start writing for  _ Wynonna Earp _ ?

TEAPET: Oh gosh, well, this is my first fanfiction but I’ve always liked writing, I was a writing major in college. And I write my own zines and it just seemed like something new and fun to try, and I had totally fallen in love with the show, and there was so much about the characters that I loved. I felt like they had such rich backstories to mine so it felt like the perfect fodder for fanfiction.

DARKWICCAN: And what you do with that fodder is, as they say in the old 1940s gangster movies, churs. 

CLIMB: Churs, that’s a new one for me DW, churs. 

DARKWICCAN: Churs yeah, well you sort of have to imagine it with a Bostonian, or New York gangster mobster sound. But yeah.

TEAPET: I love that. 

DARKWICCAN: Which has nothing to do with high school or the contemporary setting you’ve placed these characters in. So you say that you’ve got a background in writing? Do you continue to write regular fiction? I mean you’ve got your zines going.

TEAPET: I don’t really. I haven’t been writing nearly as much since I finished grad school which was a couple of years ago. And so it’s been kind of nice to use fanfiction as a way back into that. Kind of exercise my creative muscles, I think it’s such a great outlet. So no, I haven’t been writing as much, this is pretty much my [inaudible] besides my zines which are not fiction.

DARKWICCAN: May I ask what the subject of your zines are? 

TEAPET: Yeah, so I have a series, it’s called  _ Ten Years in My Twenties _ . It’s a personal zine, or perzine, and I’m basically going over some of the events of my twenties and reflecting on them. I turned 30 last year so now I can finally look at my twenties as a whole decade. And I think a lot of big things happened to me in my twenties so it’s been fun to look back with the wisdom, quote/unquote, that I have now and just kind of dissect that. I like to do collaging and stuff, like artistic stuff with them, I’ll draw parts of them. So yeah, it’s just a fun little creative project.

DARKWICCAN: Oh nice. So you’re an artist as well?

TEAPET: Yeah, I mean, not professional or anything. Just I like to draw and dabble in art. So yeah.

CLIMB: The amount of talent in this fandom, because it’s never just one thing with any writer that I ever talk to it’s, “oh I write, but then I do this,” or I draw or work on music. The talent is just unreal.

DARKWICCAN: So thanks for continuing to prove our point.

TEAPET: Yeah, no problem. I do what I can. 

DARKWICCAN: So jumping over to this story, which is just so, man it’s utterly fantastic. What is it about these characters that makes placing them in a high school setting so appealing to authors?

TEAPET: Well, so I know you said high school stories are hit or miss. For me they’re almost always a hit. I love high school stories. I don’t know what it is about it. I promise I didn't peak in high school, I’m not like one of those people. But I don’t know, I just find them fascinating. And for my work, I work in a library and we’re a special library, it’s a research and exam library and we have our collection entirely made up of children’s and middle grade and YA books. So I read about 250 middle grade and YA novels per year. So I read a good number of high school stories. And they always appeal to me, something about them, I don’t know what it is, just takes me back to my high school years I guess. And I think high school’s such an exciting time because people are starting to figure themselves out and maybe really falling in love for the first time, or at least having really super intense crushes. We tend to feel things so strongly in high school. So I wanted to place Waverly and Nicole in high school just to think about mostly Waverly’s back story. I find it so interesting all of the stuff we kind of know about her but don’t exactly know. Like how did she start doing the Earp research, how did that start? Who might have helped her and maybe what did people say about it? What was her family like back then? And I also was thinking obviously what would it have been like for her if she’d had Nicole at that time in her life? How would it have been different? So it’s sort of a mashup of canon and imagination. Waverly’s a little bit more canon I think in my fic than Nicole is. I was just really interested in Waverly’s background.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, you definitely have more of a canon Waverly experience than with Nicole. But I like the idea of what if she had Nicole? I like that. Because Nicole, even in her nervousness about coming out to her friends and family, is still a very steadying presence. And I think that’s true to her as she is as a person. And so having this very steady, sure, presence, even though inside she might be a duck on the water, all smooth as glass on the top, and paddling like hell underneath. Being that apparent steady-- having that apparent steadiness and surety I think is very good for Waverly who sort of at least at the start of this story is very much doing the thing that we assume Waverly did based on canon. Which was make herself desirable to the crowd. 

TEAPET: Yeah, totally.

CLIMB: Right, right. And that’s exactly the thing that I felt first was that Waverly was the extrovert in this fic, and so many times we see her working in a library, and she’s the shy quiet one, and Nicole is the complete opposite. She has the confidence and she’s out and proud, and to be cliche about it she knows her place in the world. But in this fic I kind of felt that you took a different route and outside of canon as we were talking about a moment ago where Nicole’s the shy one, she’s hiding away behind her comic books and she’s just enough involved socially to do the photography and reporting and things. So why did you choose to put each of those in the particular roles that you did for this fic?

TEAPET: Yeah, that’s an interesting question. And I think it’s interesting that a lot of times in fic you do see the opposite of how I wrote them. Because to me, obviously I’m biased, but the way I wrote them seems like the way they are. I just think, or at least that’s who they were in high school. I don’t know, I can’t imagine Nicole as anything other than a quiet girl, a thinker, a serious person, someone who likes to work on solitary athletic pursuits in high school. Just kind of more of a loner with a few good friends, like she’s got Jeremy. And obviously we know Waverly from the show was bubbly and popular and social from high school. And that’s something I find so interesting about waverly is that she’s got this exterior that’s one way and we know she’s got a really deep interior and I think emotional life, and intellectual life, that people don’t know about, and all of these interests that people don’t know about. And so I really wanted to have the two characters complementing each other and bringing out the pieces of their personalities that don’t really show on the outside, or at least didn’t in high school. So that was why I wrote them like that. And then I also realised that along the way as I was writing Nicole that I was just sort of writing myself in high school. The more I write the more I’m like, “gosh Nicole is a lot like me.” Just kind of quiet and I was bookish, and I’m still bookish obviously. Like I knew I was gay when I was like 12 and had told a couple people but was pretty quiet about it. So I just have found it much easier to write Nicole from a place of personal experience I guess. And then Waverly more as I imagined her from canon as we knew she was in high school. 

CLIMB: Well, I just wanted to say I love that you describe Nicole as serious, that’s the perfect adjective I think for her in this story. And the way that the characters do complement themselves, their relationship, it worked incredibly well. And I find that a lot of times we as writers do end up writing a lot of the characters as somewhat a reflection of ourselves.

TEAPET: Yeah, and I didn’t set out to do it that way but that’s how it comes out. And I was okay with that.

DARKWICCAN: What did you, or whom did you use, well what and whom did you use as models and influences in shaping the characters of Nicole’s parents?

TEAPET: That’s such a good question--

CLIMB: Deep diving--

TEAPET: Well Nicole’s dad is 100% based on my uncle who I used to live with and I love him very dearly, he’s one of the most important people in my life, so I always-- he’s kind of a goofball and I wanted a little bit of him to come out in Nicole’s dad. Her mom, honestly I don’t know where she came from. I just knew that I wanted to kind of get at what we know about her parents from-- so we know basically different things, we know one thing from the show, and then one thing from what Kat had said in interviews about Nicole’s parents and I think the two things are different. So I think when I was writing them, they ended up being not as I wanted to, I think they are the least favourite part of what I have written because I had such a hard time kind of conceptualising who they were and what role they played in her life. But I knew that I wanted her mom to be a person who has her thumb on Nicole and has certain expectations for her, and expects her to be one way when that’s not how Nicole wants to be or who she really is. So that’s kind of what I was getting at.

DARKWICCAN: No I think you got it, I think you got it. Absolutely, I was just curious if there were any distinct characters from fiction or from reality where you were going ah this is where I get that. Because I really could relate to your Nicole’s parents, a lot.

TEAPET: Oh, good to know.

DARKWICCAN: One thing that not a lot of high school AUs tend to tackle, there are exceptions, yours being one of them, is the supernatural part of Purgatory and history within Waverly’s family. When did you decide that you wanted to include this and why was it important to you to include this.

TEAPET: Oh I knew right away. Because the thing I’m so interested in with Waverly is how she started researching Earp history and the Revenants, and how that part of her past affected her. I kind of wanted to explore what sort of memories she retained from childhood, for instance her father’s death, whatever stories he might have told, Wynonna’s really turbulent adolescence, I think that probably had a major effect on her and she’s probably torn between something she knows to be true which is things she saw as a child and the things she heard her father say and her sister say and the things that the rest of the town and the rest of her family, like Gus, are telling her, which is something totally different. They’re telling her to ignore it, that it’s not true, and how would that play out, how did she decide to go with researching the thing she knows to be true rather than ignoring it like the rest of the town. I also wanted it to be set in the Purgatory that we know because I really like that Purgatory. I think it’s so fascinating the way, it’s sort of like Buffy right? If you know Buffy. The way some people ignore the supernatural happenings around them and just sort of turn a blind eye, but really know that they’re going on and they leave it up to certain people to fight whatever's happening. It’s sort of like that and I find it really fascinating that some people are able to do that. And then I think in general I'm less interested in fantasy aspects of stories, in any media, reading, tv shows and movies, and I’m more interested in the people experiencing them and the realistic emotional aspects of that. So I really wanted to use the supernatural aspects to explore how they affected Waverly and nicole. Especially when Waverly is kind of facing them alone. 

DARKWICCAN: [softly] Nice, nice. Sorry, I was just really getting into that answer. Because, yeah, I guess it is a choice you have to make from the beginning, whether or not you’re going to go for it. And it really is interesting how, and not just in television series like  _ Buffy the Vampire Slayer _ , or  _ Wynonna Earp _ , where the regular non-werewolf citizens will just turn a blind eye, but that’s just true in reality. There are people who will just-- I mean look at what’s happening right now. There are people who will just-- I mean they’re aware on the periphery but you know, I mean it’s nothing, it’s nothing right?

CLIMB: Right?

DARKWICCAN: So yeah, I think I also have been curious about what got Waverly on this track to become super investigator murder wall Waverly, you know?

TEAPET: The fact that she did a whole university degree via correspondence is insane to me, I mean that’s so amazing. How cool and driven and determined would she have to be to do that, I just think it’s incredible.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, and wasn’t it-- okay there’s going to be some-- we’ll get tweeted about this after this airs-- doesn’t she have multiple degrees or is it just one? 

TEAPET: Um, gosh.

DARKWICCAN: I thought she had a degree in languages as well.

CLIMB: I know that she speaks the four languages so-- but I don’t know if it’s a degree.

TEAPET: I can’t remember. I know she has at least one.

DARKWICCAN: At least one. And by correspondence still like-- even one degree by correspondence is hugely impressive so.

CLIMB: Going back to the Waverly and Nicole relationship, it seemed to me like they realised they have a special bond immediately. The first time that they talk to each other and then immediately moving into the subsequent conversations that they had. They have that feeling that I think we all want them to have which is that they’re meant for each other. But did you write the story with the intention that they’re meant to be and I was also curious as to what the specific moments are that you chose to focus on to convey those developing feelings for each other.

TEAPET: Yeah, Waverly and Nicole meant to be. Yeah, I did write the story with that intention but I will say-- I think “meant to be” is an interesting phrase because I think when people say two people are meant to be it’s assumed that that phrase is meant to be forever. And I think “meant to be” can also mean meant to be for a period in our lives, maybe a short period, maybe a longer period. So I did write this fic with the idea that Waverly and Nicole would be “meant to be” right now in this fic, as in this point in time in high school. I think that they need each other right now in order to grow. I think they’ve reached a point where they’re ready to grow maybe in a different direction or grow more into who they are, so they are meant to be right now, to be together. So I think Nicole needs Waverly to kind of help her grow her confidence, to help her maybe come out, accept her queerness a bit more, stand up for what she wants in life. And Waverly I think needs Nicole to help her realise that she doesn’t have to go it alone, she can ask people for help, she can accept support, she can open up and not be perfect, because I think that’s up to this point in her life kind of what she’s been obsessed with, being perfect. And so I will say I’m not trying to imply that they’re going to break up at the end of my fic, because I don’t want to break anybody’s heart, and this is totally a Wayhaught fic and I love them together. So long answer short, yes I absolutely wrote them for each other in this fic. I will say I have an unpopular opinion, probably, which is that I think in the show if they were to break up I would not be heart broken. 

DARKWICCAN: [horrified gasp]

TEAPET: I don’t want them to break up by any means but I think if it made sense or the story and they grew apart then that would be realistic and it’s just part of life. And I think it’s okay that people come into our lives and maybe help us, or help us connect with who we are in that moment and vice versa. And then sometimes they move out of our lives, or they move out of the role that they’ve been playing for us in our life, and I think that’s okay. And so, I don't know, I sort of am just pushing back a little bit I guess against the idea of “meant to be” because I think sometimes it can create unrealistic expectations. Maybe I’m getting too deep into this answer but yeah, those are my thoughts.

CLIMB: Oh, I love that. I love the explanation of meant to be for right now, because not everything is forever. I think that we all have romantic notions, or at least the majority of the fandom does that love Wayhaught. The romantic notion that they are meant to be forever. But the very realistic part of life is exactly that. People come in and out for whatever reasons and that they are meant to be in our lives at that point, and I think that’s a beautiful sentiment to have. Especially for a couple who are as young as they are in this story.

TEAPET: Yeah, exactly. They’re just in high school. And to answer the other part of your question, I think you asked about specific moments that I chose to focus on, since I think this also relates to them just being high schoolers, I really approached it from they’re falling in love from different directions. Like for Nicole it was more of a physical thing, you know when you have a really intense crush on someone and just being near them, it’s like electric, it’s almost like they have some sort of field surrounding them and just being near them is almost like touching them. And so for Nicole I wanted her to feel that, just the power of being close to Waverly, the moment when Waverly links arms with her at the football field, or when she’s driving Waverly home or when they’re dancing at the bonfire, when she’s sitting next to her on the bale of hay and I think their legs are touching, just that kind of thing. Like it starts out really physical for Nicole. And for Waverly I had the opposite, I wanted her feelings to kind of hit her over the head all of a sudden. I wanted her to fall slowly but be clueless about it, which makes sense because she hadn’t really realised she was bi before Nicole came along. So a lot of it is Waverly feeling like she can drop this mask of perfection and happiness she wears all day, every day. So like the times I wanted her to feel like she can open up to Nicole and be vulnerable around her. Like the time she talks about Wynonna, or when she tells Nicole at the bonfire that she thinks she wants to break up with Champ, or when they’re walking home from the homestead and she talks a little bit about her childhood trauma. I think I wanted Waverly to be seeking comfort in a way she doesn’t with anybody else and Nicole providing comfort in a way that she doesn’t with anybody else, both emotionally and physically. If that makes sense.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, I think you took the words right out of my mouth, I was going to actually ask you about that. You’ve got two very honest portrayals of the process of self discovery and coming of age, and I think you may have already answered the question of what were the most important aspects of these two stories that you wanted to convey?

TEAPET: Well I can think of another important aspect. I think I’ll say right off the bat that the process of self discovery is different for everyone and I think people put a lot of pressure on themselves to feel things by a certain time, or realise things by a certain age, but you know everyone’s process is okay and good and happens at the right pace, whatever that pace is. So I wanted Nicole and Waverly to discover aspects of their identity at paces that were different from one another. So I think Nicole knows she’s gay, obviously a lot earlier than Waverly realises she’s bi, and just other things too. Their interests and their passions, they’re just discovering things at different rates and another thing I wanted to show was the importance of community and getting support from other people. I had Nicole kind of finding her little queer community in Jeremy and Robin. I think that’s something that’s so important, I think that’s something that’s totally changed my life, finding other queer people. Waverly of course has Chrissy Nedley and then she has Nicole, and I haven’t finished the story yet, and I am planning on finishing it, so I am thinking ahead and thinking about how this theme is going to continue, especially for Waverly. I think that’s one of the most important themes, or at least I hope it is.

DARKWICCAN: I gotta say, something you touched on a few minutes ago on the feeling of that electric feeling when you’re near someone that you have a crushing feeling for. Oh man, I was taken straight back to my own high school and early twenties experience of multiple girls I had crushes on, and just being in their presence I felt that my heart was going to flutter out of my chest, and that my skin was on fire. Oh man, you captured that feeling so perfectly.

TEAPET: Thank you.

CLIMB: Oh, I agree, and I think it’s just a universal feeling because if you encounter those people again in your life, it doesn’t matter how old you are, you still have that same amazing magnetism to them.

TEAPET: Exactly. It’s just such an amazing feeling.

CLIMB: I did have one other question because a lot of times when I talk to other writers, and I listen to the podcast and things like that, the recurring thing that keeps coming up is that their inspiration is the first scene, the scene that gets them writing. Did you have that happen to you? And if so would you tell us what scene it was?

TEAPET: Yeah, so this does sort of happen to me but it’s a little different for me. It’s always little details that I want to write. I love comics myself so I wanted to write Nicole reading a comic, and I wanted to write Nicole running alone in the morning, and I wanted to write Waverly making tea. Like all these little things that totally don’t really matter to the story are things that I just totally wanted to write. And so then I just set that within my bigger interest which was exploring Waverly’s back story. So in answering the questions I had about Waverly basically. So I just started with little tiny inconsequential details and went from there. 

CLIMB: I think that goes back to what DW and I were talking about in the first segment that those little tiny moments are what make this fic so real and you feel all of those small yet important emotions to each of the characters. I think you’ve done a beautiful job.

TEAPET: Thank you so much, that’s so nice. It’s good to hear as a writer.

DARKWICCAN: Well, we’re here to tell you that you’re a good writer. A really really good writer, you’re an excellent excellent writer. 

CLIMB: Yes, more than.

TEAPET: Gosh.

DARKWICCAN: In the first segment I brought up an actor who I frequently think of, in fact who I only think of when I picture Curtis, and I’m curious, when writing the character of Curtis do you have a particular face or persona in mind?

TEAPET: That’s a good question. No, I don’t. I think Curtis is just like this amalgamation of all of these farmer type guys that I grew up around. I grew up in a really rural area in the midwest. And he just is like kind of a mixture of all of them. Like a stock physical appearance in my head.

DARKWICCAN: Central casting basically.

TEAPET: He was so fun to write though, because I really love Curtis and I always wish that we could have met Curtis on the show.

DARKWICCAN: Oh man, me too.

TEAPET: I love him.

CLIMB: It always makes me wonder if they’ll ever do an episode with a flashback and they cast an actor, the amount of pressure that would entail to cast someone that we’ve all idolised and idealised in stories would be very hard for the show. But it would be very interesting to see who they-- and how that character would be portrayed, like in an alternate universe.

DARKWICCAN: I want to know what Emily’s thought process is? The architect, who she’s picturing in her mind. If she could cast anyone in this role who would she cast?

TEAPET: I’m sure she would have an answer for you.

DARKWICCAN: Oh, I’m sure. I’m sure. When we finally have her on the show I’ll be sure to ask. [laughs]

CLIMB: That was going to be my next question DW, when is she coming on the show? Please make sure you ask this question.

DARKWICCAN: What a get would that be? Woof.

CLIMB: But we’re so lucky that she supports the writers and the authors the way she does, even though she’s not allowed to look at it, she’s not allowed to read it or hear any story ideas or anything. I don’t think we could have had a better showrunner than Emily to really support the artistic community as a whole, but especially the writers.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, I completely agree. Totally, totally hardcore agree. Well, Teapet, this has been wonderful. I’ve so enjoyed chatting with you today and with Climb this has been-- I don’t know, I’m all abuzz. I’m feeling electric like Nicole standing next to Waverly.

TEAPET: So am I. It’s been wonderful. Especially since i feel like I’ve hardly talked to anybody in recent weeks this has been even better.

DARKWICCAN: So happy to provide you with an outlet to talk to someone. Well, before we let you go we do have one final question for you. And I’m going to turn it over to Climb to ask.

CLIMB: I love this. I love the honour of this. I got to do it last week too. So you’re stranded on a desert island and have only one fic to read, what is it?

TEAPET: So i actually have read very very very few  _ Wynonna Earp _ fics, which is really shameful. And again I blame my work that I’m just constantly reading for work. So I know this is cheating also. There are two that I have started and haven’t been able to finish and if I could bring those two, and one is  _ Then And Again _ by Loveisgravity, and the other one I think is yours Climb, it’s the Uber Nicole? That one. I started both and I desperately want to finish them. 

DARKWICCAN: So you only get one. So if you had to choose.

CLIMB: Go with  _ Then And Again _ , go with  _ Then And Again _ . I love that fic.

TEAPET: Which one is longer?

CLIMB: That one. 

TEAPET: Alright, I guess I’ll pick  _ Then And Again _ . Sorry Climb. But yours is--

CLIMB: No, I agree with you, I love  _ Then And Again _ . It’s a fantastic fic.

DARKWICCAN:  _ Then And Again _ is one of those-- it’s another coming of age story only this one kind of follows us all the way into adulthood and it just captured so many visceral moments. Whether or not you experience them yourself, or something similar to them, still I think you could empathise deeply with what Loveisgravity is writing. So I strongly approve of your selection and I will be more than happy to put that in the show notes for this episode, so anyone who hasn’t read  _ Then And Again _ , and why haven’t you, will have the opportunity to. So Teapet thank you again so much for joining us to chat about your wonderful story  _ The Truth is Now _ , I encourage everybody to sit down and give it a read. And we look forward to when you’re able to circle back to it and give us another chapter. But honestly there’s so much to dig into right now as it is, we’ll be sated for a while. So don’t feel any pressure, never any pressure, when you do find yourself sitting down to write again I cannot wait to see what you bring us next.

TEAPET: Thank you so much. Well, now I’m feeling inspired so maybe I will get back to it this weekend. It’s a long weekend, so-- 

DARKWICCAN: Excellent, fantastic.

CLIMB: Absolutely. I’m so excited.

MUSIC: Don't Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Maddigan

And that's all for this episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Thanks for joining us.

Tremendous thanks to TeaPet for chatting with us about their work!

  
  


Thanks also to our announcer Byron Tidwell for our intro 

Background music for the episode was:

A Proper Story by Darren Korb

Sam's Band (Pop Version) by Erik Barone

This Is Everything (Instrumental Version) by Josh Woodward

and the outro music is Don't Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Madigan

  
  


If you have questions or comments for the podcast you can find us on Twitter at E-F-A underscore Podcast and on Facebook at E-F-A Podcast. 

And you can find all of our episodes, old and new, at our website E-F-A Podcast dot com.

And if you're listening on iTunes, please take a moment to rate and review our show.

  
  


Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you'll join us again next time for another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Until then, READ MORE FIC!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Episodes post Mondays at 8am PST
> 
> Visit our Website http://efapodcast.com/ for all episodes old and new!
> 
> Follow us on Twitter: @efa_podcast
> 
> And on Facebook: facebook.com/EFAPodcast


	12. Everyone Fallout

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This week Delayne and DW strap on their Pip-Boys and try not to irradiate themselves drinking too much Nuka Cola as they discuss GoldenWaffles' Fallout New Vegas AU!

[Click HERE to Listen!](http://efapodcast.com/everyone-fallout)

Read the Fic!

####  [Ain't Love a Kick in the Head](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19940617) by [GoldenWaffles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenWaffles/pseuds/GoldenWaffles)

Episode Artwork by Chantal Zeegers

GoldenWaffles' Desert Island Fic Selection is:

####  [just try not to die, okay?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15632757) by [maidenstar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maidenstar/pseuds/maidenstar)

Episode Transcript by Edin Earper

Ep412 - Everyone Fallout

[ph] – Indicates preceding word has been spelled phonetically

[sic] – Indicates preceding word has been transcribed verbatim

  
  


DARKWICCAN: Thanks Announcer Guy, and welcome everybody to another episode of The Earp Fiction Addiction, the podcast dedicated entirely to Wynonna Earp fanfiction. I am your host Darkwiccan and with me is my wonderful companion…

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Hi it’s Delayne!

DARKWICCAN: And this week on the show we make sure that our pit boys are in full operational condition before we se-head out into the vast wasteland of the New Vegas Desert. That’s right, we’re talking about a Fallout fic. 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: In particular we are discussing the fic “Ain’t Love A Kick In The Head” by GoldenWaffles [CONTENT CENSORED. PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT]

DARKWICCAN: Now, uh, hopping back to the story…. I have never played a single Fallout game, um, and this may be a situation of the console that it’s made for…

DELAYNE: Actually, Fallout games are PC, XBox and Playstation.

DARKWICCAN: Ah, well you see I have neither an XBox nor a Playstation, and my PC is just a laptop and doesn’t have a videogaming card or anything like that on it.

DELAYNE: (Laughs) So yeah, I mean if you’re not a gamer, that’s...generally, y’know that’s...understandable. It’s-it’s a certain kind of game.

DARKWICCAN: Well the thing is it actually looks like it’s something that I would enjoy playing-

DELAYNE: (Laughs) 

DARKWICCAN: -if I were to sit down, and, y’know, have time to get into it, but I just don’t.

DELAYNE: Ok, the Fallout gr-games are great - the story lines, I me-I-i-if you give me a good story in a game, even if I suck at shooting people (laughs) like, I am there for the story. And of course, I was first introduced to Fallout, uh, when Fallout 4 came out, so this is after 1, 2, 3 and New Vegas, and I was told that you could play the male or female character, and in your companions, there were a few companions that you can romance….

DARKWICCAN: Oohhhh…

DELAYNE: ...and that means, you being a female player, you could romance your female companion, so we have girls falling in love, and I’m like “I need to play this game” (laughs). 

DARKWICCAN: Ah, the Great Gay Videogame Migration, or should I say, the Video-Gay-m Migration…

DELAYNE: (Laughs) 

DARKWICCAN: But you know, I get it, representation is a thing, man, and-uh I can say that, y’know, of the video games that I have played, and I have played my fair share of video games now. Honestly most of them have been Nintendo related... 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Uh...but...yeah there’s something to wanting to play a character that is kinda like you, that’s sort of the point of video games, right?

DELAYNE: Right...uh huh, so…

DARKWICCAN: -Yourself in a heightened reality.

DELAYNE: (Laughs) So, yeah, my first Fallout game I played myself, and then I was, uh, then I had personally some inspiration so I created my character as Nicole (laughs) and pretended that my companion was Waverly.

DARKWICCAN: That’s adorable.

DELAYNE: And it worked out great!

DARKWICCAN: That’s wonderful!

DELAYNE: So, uh, when I saw this fic, um, oh man I was super excited. Now I have never played New Vegas, but uh-le-hol-I’m-I’m getting ahead of myself, I apologise. Let me sort of explain the Fallout universe in general, for people who have absolutely no clue.

DARKWICCAN: Excellent.

DELAYNE: Now, as-as you can imagine, a name like Fallout, this is a post-apocalyptic world after some nuclear bombs fell. And now if you’ve seen any clips you’re like “ah it’s got kinda this retro 50s feel to it” right? 

DARKWICCAN: Yeah…

DELAYNE: Yeah, so basically it’s the world that, when-when we came into nuclear power, we continued with it and instead of it becoming an arms race and trying to stop it, it actually became a useful powersource so you have your... the cars don’t really fly, but you know, they’re-they’re nuclear powered...cars, you have your-you have your helpful robots, I-I mean it’s kind of like The Jetsons, just you’re not flying in space. But you have your cool little...you know...your awesome little cars, an-and everyone’s got their-their nice th-you know they dress very smart, their suit and tie, and their...nice little skirts, um, so i-it-the story goes that this is actually set in the future, um, way in the future, but when the bombs finally fall it’s actually the year 2077, so you’re like “how’s it 50s but also 2077?” Right so you’re in 2077 in a future that’s sort of diverged in the 50s where nuclear power is the main power source and everyone enjoys it, and it’s not until much later when again, resource wars-resources start becoming scarce, wars start happening, and then you have two governments with warheads that are fighting against each other. And then what they refer to as “The Great War”, was actually just one day, the bombs go off and the world is completely changed. Now most of these Fallout games actually start, like, a hundred years later after what they call the Great War, which-like, as I said, is just the one day when bombs fell. And um, before the bombs fell, there was a company called Vault-Tec and they set up these bunkers, these vaults, that in case of an incident, you would go live in and they would be self-sustainable and-um, could last a long time and then eventually once things were safe, you know people could come out and explore the world again. And...in this case some of the vaults did open early, um, and people did get out but also there were people who survived...the bombings and...so you have this-this whole dynamic of all sorts of people. There’s the vault-dwellers, which when you play the game your main character is al-is-pretty much always a vault-dweller...the exception being New Vegas, maybe, I’m actually not as far in the game so I don’t know if I’m a vault-dweller...um, but all the other ones, y’know, you’re a vault-dweller and there’s a reason you’re leaving the vault and going out into the wasteland. And you’ll encounter, uh, raiders...there’s um, on the West Coast the New California Republic has sort of set up a government, um… There’s all these factions, and th-the fun thing about the games is that, especially the later ones, it’s such a large open world and your decisions, your dialogue will change the story completely so-

DARKWICCAN: So interesting.

DELAYNE: Yeah you can come upon someone and they’ll ask you for water and just whether you give them water or not, y’know, some of them-some of it-they all have some sort of a game mechanic where, um, doing good deeds, uh, nets positive results in some way, or how you interact with someone, if you interact with someone else later in the game and you are bad to that other person, y’know, they’re gonna look, they might just straight up attack you, so...it-it’s an awesome game, and-and New Vegas fits into this I think it’s-I forget how much in the future, ‘cos most of these are set one hundred to two hundred years, maybe about two hundred years after the bombs...fall, and in New Vegas you start out, um, waking up in a doctor’s office and someone has shot you. There’s a little short intro scene of a dude in a jacket and you just sort of have this vague memory that they shot you and thr-threw you in a...um... grave (laughs), shallow grave and left you for dead. And so you wake up and you’re trying to figure out what’s going on, and y’know that’s the start of the game, is trying to figure out who you are and what happened to you. 

DARKWICCAN: So the story, “Ain’t Love A Kick In The Head”, uh, by GoldenWaffles is based on New Vegas, and it starts- 

DELAYNE: Yep.

DARKWICCAN: -off pretty much exactly the same, as the New Vegas game, uh you wake up in-in this it’s Doc Holliday’s, er, office... 

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Yes.

DARKWICCAN: Er, and he directs you to a bar, which in this case is Shorty’s, and-uh, you have been shot, or Nicole-Nicole has been shot- 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: -and has no memory aside from waking-or being shot and tossed into a grave, and so-

DELAYNE: Yes.

DARKWICCAN: -the story follows her piecemealing her memories together, as she gets ready to embark on a journey to learn even more about what happened, um, and perhaps face her attacker and get a little revenge or something. 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Um, so that is where we get started. Now Delayne you said there was an easter egg, uh, referring to the start of the game in the start of the story? 

DELAYNE: Yeah, so, uh the way GoldenWaffles writes this, uh, is absolutely amazing if-if you, even before, ‘cos when it-when it first posted I hadn’t actually played New Vegas at that point, um...so y’know, I jump right in, I’m like “I’m going for it, I at least know the Fallout universe”, um, and it was, just even that first chapter was just so vivid, I was like “Oh my gosh I need to play this game!” (Laughs) I need-I need to see how close they are together, and, in the game you’re-you’re a courier, you’re-you’re a messenger so...what you’re finding-y’know you find out slowly that you were trying to get so-a package somewhere, and you know, blah blah blah. So, this isn’t, like, Nicole’s story is close but it’s not exact and I love that, because a. If I were to write this I probably would’ve gone so ridiculously close that it, y’know, it would’ve been just like playing the game. So kudos to GoldenWaffles for really giving Nicole her own storyline even though it’s very closely related. So, the easter egg then, is that first chapter, when Doc is helping Nicole out, getting her ready to go...and Doc says “Hope you don’t mind me walking you out, the last gentleman who stayed here robbed me blind.” (Laughs) So when you first start the game, y’know, you start in Doc’s place, and it’s like th-y-y-if you play any Fallout game, you just, you learn to just pick up absolutely everything - you never know if you’re going to need it. If you find- 

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: -a way to stash it away safely, ‘cos you can only carry so much on you, you just take absolutely everything, and when I read that I was like “Ohh, so maybe this takes place a little bit after (laughs) this cur-er-courier, uh, who also got shot in the head (laughs) that’s stopped by and also taken all of Doc’s stuff. And it’s just genius, I just, this story is absolutely amazing. Uh-s-so-ye-you having no experience in Fallout, how has it been for you to be invested in this? (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Oh, great! Uh, the writing is really really solid, uh, and it’s been delightful following the story as it unfolds. Um, I am so curious about...what happened that led Nicole to being shot by Bobo and his gang, sorry, spoiler alert, and uh…

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Uh that’s a-that comes fairly early, that we learn-

DARKWICCAN: Yeah.

DELAYNE: Well, everyone knows because all Nicole remembers is a guy in a fuzzy coat (laughs) shoots her-

DARKWICCAN: Yeah.

DELAYNE: -so…(laughs)

DARKWICCAN: So, y’know I;m really curious about, uh, that mystery being solved, and I’m… really enjoying the slow dynamic of Waverly and Nicole’s budding relationship, and yeah the, um, the story just wrapped up what GoldenWaffles is calling Part 1, eh, with Nicole heading onto the next part of her journey and I am sooo invested in finding out what happens next.

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Right? And-and I hope you’re not...I hope you’re being engaged with-that...you know, some of these random things that you might not understand, are they fur-fairly well described to you? You feel?

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, I mean, I know just from pop culture knowledge...I mean I knew that Fallout takes place after a nuclear war. Um, and so I knew that there were mutated creatures and things like that, so yeah, when our heroes come across various mutated bugs and animals and whatnot, um, what I’m imagining is just the basic animal embiggened and er, made a bit more grotesque. So-

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Yeah, yeah that’s….fairly accurate, yeah!

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, so it’s not too difficult, y’know, for-for my brain to- 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: -er, come up with imagery. (Laughs) Yeah.

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Er, there’s another thing that, um, GoldenWaffles, I-ok-so the-so the details in this, I mean people aren’t probably gonna catch some of this, but like, when Nicole is injured, wait, who is injured...They’re talking about, oh right, after they go for the geckos there’s some injury happening? 

DARKWICCAN: Uh huh.

DELAYNE: Yeah, um, soo, they’re talking about the um…. So, like most video games there’s a way to heal yourself, um, and one of the first things that you get is a healing powder…

DARKWICCAN: Uh-hm.

DELAYNE: Um, ‘cause Stimpaks are, uh, a little harder to come by ‘cause that’s a pre-well they call it pre-war, y’know, technology. And so they’re talking about the-the the healing patter-powder, and of course Waverly makes a crack about Wyno-er-Wynonna, her cu-her cure for wounds is, y’know, sleep and whiskey. Um, but Nicole mentions that she prefers Stimpak over the healing powder, ‘cause she’s like, “It works okay, but it feels wor-weird, and always makes my vision go all blurry”. So here’s another thing that, unless you play the game, you’re not gonna know. If you use a healing powder, it actually gives you minus one to your perception. So like, that little genius dialogue there, I-I just, I can’t stop fangirling over how well written this is!

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs) 

DELAYNE: So, people who have-who don’t know anything about Fallout, just, pay attention and if you go “Huh, that’s-that seems a little, like, a random piece of information.” I promise you, it’s not, there is some connection to the videogame, and it’s amazing, all of these little connections.

DARKWICCAN: And as someone who has no familiarity with the videogame, um, I’m not feeling at a loss at all. The story is-

DELAYNE: That’s good. 

DARKWICCAN: -incredibly strong and stands on its own merit. 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Um, I haven’t had any issue following what’s going on at all, uh, GoldenWaffles has done a great job of, uh, giving full depth and er, characterisation to everybody that they’ve included in the story, whether they’re coming from the Wynonna Earp universe or from the Fallout universe. Now we’ve only really seen one character that only exists in Fallout-

DELAYNE: Yes. 

DARKWICCAN: -and that’s Victor the robot, uhhh…

DELAYNE: Victor the robot.

DARKWICCAN: Uhhh, pretty much everybody else, or everybody else really, let’s be honest, is a Wynonna Earp character that has been fit into this world. Uh, and every role they play is completely believable.

DELAYNE: It fits so very well because the, um, one of-one of the first encounters in the game, is a gang called the “Powder Gangers”, which are, er, prisoners who are brought to be a chain gang, um, to blast dynamite, uh, using dynamite to blast, y’know, keep up the railroad and build new railroad for the New California Republic and-and of course the...you give a bunch of criminals (laughs) a weapon like dynamite... (Laughs) 

DARKWICCAN: Yeahh.

DELAYNE: Um, yeah. So, uh… Turning that gang into the Revenants, uh, was absolutely genius because y’know…. Wyatt Earp’s kills were criminals. (Laughs) The Powder Gangers are as… er, ridiculously equivalent to the Revenants, ‘cause they’re criminals. Some of them a little more criminally and psychotic than others. (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs) So yeah, basically, uh, GoldenWaffles is just brilliant in how they’ve appropriated, uh....

DELAYNE: Uh huh.

DARKWICCAN: Uh, a mix of characters between turning characters from Fallout into characters from Wynonna Earp, an-and er… vice versa, so it’s just a, it’s a-it’s a delightful read, delightful read, and er, I can tell how excited you are about this story-

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

  
  


DARKWICCAN: -I mean I really really enjoy it, but I can tell that you are just so excited about it, so why don’t we wrap up what we’re doing here and go ahead and dive into our interview, er, with GoldenWaffles, er and I’m just gonna cut you loose, y-you just-you just go crazy-

DELAYNE: (Laughs) 

DARKWICCAN: -corner GoldenWaffles and fangirl all over them, um…

DELAYNE: (Laughs) That sounds fantastic and I look forward to that-

DARKWICCAN: Awesome. 

DELAYNE: -and then once we’re done I’ll probably go back to playing the games more, ‘cause, um, I got some-some companions, uh, and really-like-if, I would’ve done this so completely differently ‘cause there’s two companions - one is very much a Wynonna and one is quite a Waverly, and I wou-so I would’ve done it completely different, so I love that we… that GoldenWaffles starts out right in Goodsprings slash Purgatory and we’re, and we’re there and we’re established because in the game play you wouldn’t meet these people for a while and not a lot of people stick around for a Wayhaught story if you don’t get, if you’re with one character for a little bit too long, y’know?

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, totally. Well what are we doin’? What are we-what are we waitin’ for?

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Let’s get this show on the road here. [CONTENT CENSORED. PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT]

MUSIC: “Hoe Down” from Rodeo by Aaron Copland

DARKWICCAN: ANd welcome back everybody to The Earp Fiction Addiction, the podcast dedicated entirely to Wynonna Earp fanfiction. I am your host Darkwiccan and with me is my delightful cohost…

DELAYNE: Hi it’s Delayne!

DARKWICCAN: And er, actually something really funny Delayne... 

DELAYNE: What? 

DARKWICCAN: I-my-for whatever reason, my monitor keeps playing back at me, and er, so I’m like talking to myself…?

DELAYNE: (Laughs) 

DARKWICCAN: So in an effort to mitigate that I turned the volume of my monitor down… which accidentally turned down the volume of all sound... (Laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs) so you’re like “why…?”

DARKWICCAN: So I introduced you as like, there’s nothing. (Laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Not because there is nothing, but because I turned my monitor down. (Laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Er-we-you were just trying to really get the effect of the wasteland, I think, is what you, inadvertently, were trying to do.

DARKWICCAN: Yes I was suddenly on my own in a vast desert. (Laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs) 

DARKWICCAN: Forced to fend for myself (laughs) ah, well luckily I’m not alone because you, my friend, are here, and also with us is the delightful author of the Fallout fic we were just discussin’ “Ain’t Love A Kick In The Head”, er, GoldenWaffles, welcome to the show!

GOLDENWAFFLES: Howdy everyone! 

DARKWICCAN: Well howdy. Thank you for taking time out of your wasteland to join us!

GOLDENWAFFLES: Oh absolutely, happy to be here. 

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Um, yeah sorry, I’m so thrown off because I can just hear myself talking and that’s not something I’m used to. 

ALL: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: Okay, so, yeah, I-y’know-I don’t have much experience with power armour, but clearly you’ve got something going on with the electrical in it, that’s giving you the-

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Yeah that’s gotta be it, right? 

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Waffles knows what I’m talking about! (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Yeah, your PIPboy’s acting up, I’m trying to think of an-som-some analogy… (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Well I’m going to do my level best to ignore it, uh because I can’t take my headphones out, because I need to be able to hear you guys. (Laughs) 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Guess I should have made my intro, uh… “This is Mr New Vegas, fanning the flames of your desire.”

ALL: (Laughs) 

DARKWICCAN: Is that, uh, from the-the radio in-in…

GOLDENWAFFLES: Yeahh (laughs) some of the radio stations have some really excellent intros. (Laughs) 

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: And some pretty good music!

GOLDENWAFFLES: There’s some pretty good music which I reference a lot, prob-possibly more than I should…(laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Yes, as I confessed in the first segment, I have not played any of the Fallout games, um, I am so behind on, er, videogame...gaming? Yes, that, er, I…

DELAYNE and GOLDENWAFFLES: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: The-the last thing I played was “Yoshi’s Wooly World” (laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: That’s basically the same thing (laughs)

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs) It’s basically the same…

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: See that’s what I thought!! (Laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: It’s like that, but with Deathclaws. (Laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Ah ok...Gotcha…

DELAYNE: (Laughs) I’m trying to picture a Deathclaw, like, merging with a…(laughs) like Yoshi, as a Deathclaw...That’s a-that’s a fun image. 

GOLDENWAFFLES: Yeah

DARKWICCAN: I have no image at all because I have no idea what a Deathclaw is.

ALL: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: I’m just pic-picturing Yoshi with, like, Wolverine adamantium claws.

ALL: (Laughs) 

GOLDENWAFFLES: I mean that works, just big, big big scary (laughs) claws.

DELAYNE: Big, scary and going to eat you, yes.

GOLDENWAFFLES: Yes, very eager to kill you. (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs) So-so, uh, Waffles, would you say that you’re an avid gamer? 

GOLDENWAFFLES: Um, yes and no. I have, like, tried to get more into it over the years but I still have only played certain ones, and I don’t, like, have all the consoles or anything, um, so Fallout New Vegas is like one of the ones that I’ve just played to death, um, because it’s just...You can take it in so many different directions and like, you can-there are like, a million different endings depending on, like, who you talk to here, and what decision you make so it’s very...very replayable.

DARKWICCAN: Good to know, if I ever play it.

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Well, personally I would recommend, and I will be glad to help you in any way (laughs)

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs) Thank you

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Um...so speaking of-of New Vegas being very very playable, um, I did also notice that er, you’re-you’re a pretty experienced writer in-in multiple fandoms, so…

GOLDENWAFFLES: That’s very generous (laughs)

DELAYNE: Mor-hey, it’s-there were three-there were three options, three is more than two, which is more than one… (laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: (Laughs) These-this is true…

DARKWICCAN: Delayne can count!

ALL: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Aww you did math! (Laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Three-three fics a-a-a 

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Either way, it’s not like you’ve never written before…

GOLDENWAFFLES: True, true, I have been writing for-for quite some time. 

DELAYNE: Right, so were you searching for the perfect video game setting to put Wynonna Earp in, or was it because you love New Vegas and you were, like, waiting for the right characters to put in it, or in a...I guess-I guess shorthand, in terms of inspiration, what came first - New Vegas or Wynonna Earp?

GOLDENWAFFLES: I mean, um, I probab-oof that’s a tricky one. Probably I started watching and playing at around the same time, but the connection, uh, was never made, and like, as to like whether I was putting-wanted to put a video game into Wynonna Earp or put something else into Fallout, um, emphatically neither of them, um, I absolutely was not looking to put anything into any video game setting, ever. This fic is antithetical to everything I’ve ever done in the past, um, I do not, uh, read a lot of crossovers, I don’t ever write crossovers, I don’t generally like video game fanfiction, uh which makes this fic by far the most hypocritical thing I have ever written. 

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: (Laughs) I cannot explain its existence (laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Ok, so in the notes when you wrote the-”the fic no-one wanted” it was even a fic that you didn’t want, but it came…

GOLDENWAFFLES: Even-even a fic that I didn't ask for (laughs) 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Erm so the idea-

DELAYNE: It came to you…

GOLDENWAFFLES: I can-I-er-so the idea actually did come from, um, the sort of golden age of Old West AUs that we have, um, in the fandom for a long time we had, y’know... um, I had read “Find A Home, Lonely Heart” and I had read, um, “For The Price Of Seven Cows” and some others like that, and there were just all these Old West fics out at the time, um, and I was like “Oh these are so cool, I so wish I could do one like that” um, but I felt like I would need to, like, know anything about Westerns to do it. (Laughs) 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: And it’s just not my genre, I don’t watch them, I don’t read them, I don’t know much about the history, and so I was like “Ok well if I wanna write an Old West AU then I would have to like, research it” like I would have to go and I would read some books, and I would watch some movies and I would, like, look at the history and like, it seemed like such a time commitment that I tried to cheat and was like, well have I read or watched anything close to that, like something with the same flavour that I could use as a touchpoint instead… And I was like “Oh well y’know Fallout New Vegas is-Fallout New Vegas is kind of yeehaw, and er… (laughs) 

DELAYNE: (Laughs) 

GOLDENWAFFLES: “I’ve spent like, two hundred hours playing that, so…” And like as soon as I had thought that I was like “Nope, nope (laughs) throw that out!”

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: I said immediately, uh “We’re not doing that!” Um, but then over the course of like, I had the idea just like at some point in like, an evening and then just the rest of the evening was just an avalanche of like, possible connections and thoughts and outlines. I’m like, “Oh I could have it do this, though this character would be like that, and then like, they could have these plot lines or go on these adventures…” and it got so overwhelming that for my own sanity I was like “Fine, fine I will write down parts of this outline just to get it out of my head and then I will never ever ever think of it again…” (Laughs) 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: And it just kept going and going and like, outline turned into chapters and scenes and like... once there were like twenty or thirty thousand words there I was like,”Oh god what have I done?” (Laughs) “I have to post this now, like it’s a real thing.” 

DARKWICCAN: So this is just the story that would not leave you alone.

GOLDENWAFFLES: Yeah, this is sort of the one where I was like, “It’s fine, I’ll just have it in a document and I’ll just write it for my own, like, entertainment and I will, like, never put it anywhere, do anything to it, and eventually, like, I will lose interest and it’ll be fine.” Um, but it just kept going on- (laughs) 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: And sort of once I’ve edited um, enough chapters, like, to a postable point, I feel almost weirder not putting it up... 

DARKWICCAN: Makes sense, makes sense…

GOLDENWAFFLES: Yeah, so I...There was definitely sort of, an existential crisis when I was first posting it, I mean I did not know what to expect, I did not know like, how other people would see it because it seems so like, wildly specific to me that I-like, to this day I don’t even know what other people see when they-when they read it, like what they envision (laughs) if they can imagine what’s happening, like as they go along with it, eh-like the-like the gif of the guy standing at the board with the red string, and like, “there’s got to be a connection!” Umm... 

ALL: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: But obviously it’s managed to resonate with some other people so I’m-I’m very grateful for that. 

DARKWICCAN: Oh yeah, I don’t even play the game and I-I’m lovin’ every second of it.

GOLDENWAFFLES: Oh good. Yeah, I mean-and I do read crossovers for like, IPs that I don’t know anything about if-if it interests me enough. And so like, I know that it’s possible, I know that a lot of people that-that read it aren’t familiar with Fallout, um, and I’m just so grateful for-to them for hanging in there with me as I like, agonise over like, which song should I be playing on the radio (laughs).

ALL: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Hey these are crucial crucial decisions that need to be made. 

GOLDENWAFFLES: It’s very important. Every time. 

DARKWICCAN: Uh, so speaking of gameplay, um, how much of the story is influenced by like, plot driven gameplay versus open world exploration? 

GOLDENWAFFLES: So there’s definitely elements of both I would say, um, anyone who’s played the game even for like, thirty minutes, will recognise the opener. You wake up in this Doctor’s house, Doc Mitchell, you can-you then go to the bar, you can fix the bar-owner’s radio to get a discount, there’s a friendly local there who gives you a Varmint rifle and takes you out back shooting bottles and then you go gecko hunting with her, like it’s very...alm-like it’s very on the nose. Um, in some ways like that. And then other parts are sort of more like you’ve got the Revenants that are analogous to the-uh what are called the Powder Gangers, earlier in the game they’re like the first faction you fight. And there’s like, this bigger villain in the game, that’s Caesar’s or “Kaisar’s” Legion, um, which seemed like a great place to fit in Bulshar and...there’ll be more connections down the road especially as like, more characters start to enter the story, which will be soon. 

DELAYNE: (Laughs) I’m excited. (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: But Nicole’s direct experience is very tied to the gameplay, um, like you have to grind for enough money at first to buy things at the store, and then maybe the store doesn’t have what you’re looking for, and you wanna sleep but there’s no like, bed for you in town and so you kinda have to like, find one...uh...so you’re really fending for yourself and you’re very dependent on like, the kindness of strangers just like, giving you things and like, asking you to do favours for them. Um, so- 

DARKWICCAN: So you kinda start off playing the game, like Blanche Devereaux from “Streetcar Named Desire” and then sort of morphe into...I forgot the name of the character form “Terminator”!

ALL: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Sarah Connor?

DARKWICCAN: Sarah Connor! You sort of morphe from Blanche Devereaux type to-ah, Sarah Connor type.

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Perhaps I… (Laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs) I think you lost me-you lost me….

DARKWICCAN: Ok I will-I will take your word for it, let’s say yes.

GOLDENWAFFLES: A very very famous quote by Blanche Devereaux- 

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, the kindness of strangers, yes.

GOLDENWAFFLES: “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers”

DARKWICCAN: Yes, yeah. Ok 

DELAYNE: Uh yeah! (Laughs) Eh-uh-uh hmm. Sorry (laughs) Uhh...my PIPboy’s acting up, I apologise. (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN and GOLDENWAFFLES: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Just like, bang it real hard against the nearest surface, it’s fine. 

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Stupid light won’t turn off! I keep getting noticed.

GOLDENWAFFLES: Uhh, feels.(Laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs) So, I’m-I’m sure it’s obvious by now that I am a person who does stone? the Wasteland-

GOLDENWAFFLES:Mhmm…

DELAYNE: Um, so I-I gotta say, you did an excellent job in portraying the settings,, and not just in the description but also in how the characters talk about it and how they interact with it...Frickin’ genius!

GOLDENWAFFLES: (Laughs) Thank you so much!

DELAYNE: Um…(Laughs) So, at-and it was done so well, I just wanna know, was there like, any part that maybe you struggled with or do you think that didn’t transcribe well?

GOLDENWAFFLES: Umm, yeah, like, uh, is-I’ve definitely spent a lot of time like, worrying about how much to reference things directly from the game, um, because I feel like I do need to explain for the people who are like, just here for the Wayhaught, sort of... (Laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Like if you only know the one IP? and I go off like, talking about things like, uh, I don’t want to over explain or underexplain anything too much, and so like, when I’m this familiar with the world it’s hard to like, imagine like, “If I just say this about it, does that make enough sense to people, will they like, follow…?” Um, like originally instead of, uh, y’know when Levi robs the bar, is that a spoiler...I don’t....

DELAYNE: (Laughs) You are welcome to spoil. Yeah.

GOLDENWAFFLES: Okay, yeah, that’s...I don’t mind that. Um, when Levi like, attempts his robbery, um that was a-he-was-it wasn’t originally him, it was like, a Viper or a Jackal or something, um, just like some random...uh, but when I was trying to like, cobble an-an explanation of like, all the different gangs and stuff, I felt like if I’d try to say something like “Oh and then Nicole fought a Jackal” it sounds like she’s literally fighting a giant dog or something (laughs) and not like, a gang member or a specific variety.

ALL: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: That-that makes sense since the-the Coyotes and the uh, the Geckos are creatures, so yeah, jackal, that must be a creature. (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Yeah and-an because like you’ve got then weird things even like the Cazadores, that I had to explain in a previous chapter, or like I had to explain that the geckos are like, I mean, they’re geckos but they’re like...they’re big (laughs). They-they run…Um...

DELAYNE: (Laughs) I-eh-that was one of the scenes that um, that I think you did really well, cause’ the-the way Waverly was react-it was just the-the way that you did it was...amazing.

GOLDENWAFFLES: Thank you

DELAYNE: A-and I-I-I hope it came across as well to other people who didn’t-don’t know the universe, as it did to me. It was...Sorry. (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Good yeah, I hope so. Yeah and coming up to the-the Cazadores I was trying to figure out like, what they were based on and it was like oh it was like the tarantula hawk moths in Australia and I was like, “Oh what’s those?” and I like, googled it, and don’t do that... 

ALL: (Laughs) 

GOLDENWAFFLES: I recommend against (laughs) googling things like that…

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Like oh, that sounds like a big scary bug, what does it look like? Oh ok, so I’ll just never sleep again now, that’s fine.

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Um and then-

DELAYNE: Yeahh...when I first came across a Cazadore I slept because I was dead (laughs) I was totally unprepared (laughs). 

GOLDENWAFFLES: It is a dangerous thing to run across, and they are like, dangerously near the starting area if you like, wander in- 

DELAYNE: Right?!

GOLDENWAFFLES: -just the wrong direction. Um, there’s a lot of things that can kill you like, obnoxiously close to where you start. 

DELAYNE: Yes. (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Well that’s just mean!

DELAYNE: Spoiler for the game (laughs).

GOLDENWAFFLES: I mean if you go and wander off in any direction you-er you will learn quickly, um, one of my initial parts of the ga-er-playthroughs of the game, um, near-if you go off like, behind um, Goodsprings what I rebrand as Purgatory, um into like, the hills there it’s really dangerous ‘cause there’s a lot of big things and then there’s like a cabin that you can go into, and I went into the cabin and I came out, and like, immediately something killed me, which was a problem because then the autosave saved…

DELAYNE: (Laughs) 

GOLDENWAFFLES: ...and me coming out of the cabin, and so it was just like, a thirty minute loop of just me constantly coming out of the cabin and getting immediately killed by a Radscorpion (laughs).

DELAYNE: (Laughs) 

DARKWICCAN: Oh no!!

GOLDENWAFFLES: On a loop.

ALL: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: I had to go back to an earlier save as well. Yeah.(Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: It-it-it ha-it happens, um…(Laughs) But I guess, er, more in line with the question, um like, some other parts of it are also just hard because like, video games aren’t realistic. Not that fanfiction is, but like, at any point of the game, like, as the protagonist I’m probably carrying around like, two hundred pounds of weapons and armour and food and stuff, and like fi-I just, I...don’t want to picture Nicole like, walking around the Wasteland with like, five refrigerators full of Sunset Sarsparilla on her back. 

DELAYNE: (Laughs) 

GOLDENWAFFLES: And that is definitely like, me for most of the game. (Laughs) 

DELAYNE: I limit myself to ten. (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Oh god I-I usually have like, twenty five or more (laughs). 

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs) Oh my god….

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: It’s such a good healing item, I can’t help it. But um, it’s not practical, and like, it’s not something that I can, even like kind of discuss her doing, it’s like “Oh yeah, and then she just like, puts all of that into like, a satchel and wanders off” it’s like, that was obviously like, two hundred pounds of equipment.

ALL: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: So some things like that I’ve run into and I’ve just had to sort of handwave it or be like, “Ok so she’ll just not have everything on her at all times, it’s fine”. And she hasn’t owned like almost anything yet so it hasn’t been an issue, but like in the future part of the game that I’ve been writing um, it’s-it’s been more of an issue. (Laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, “she reaches into her Mary Poppins bag…” (laughs) 

GOLDENWAFFLES: Yeah basically it’s just like, this giant bag of holding. 

ALL: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Well there I have-

DELAYNE: An-and that’s a problem with a lot of video game crossovers.

GOLDENWAFFLES: Yeah, no you’re- yeah I-I do have a solution that I think works but might be a bit jarring to people who don’t like, are familiar with the game, but that will come up like, in two chapters. 

DELAYNE: Oooh… (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Recently you wrapped up what you’ve called Part One of the story, uh, how many more parts do you anticipate before it’s finished, and um, do you have a complete idea or a map of how things are gonna play out, or are you just sorta wingin’ it?

GOLDENWAFFLES: Um, it’s weird, ‘cause when I first started writing it, like I said it was like, just this avalanche over the course of like, a single evening. Um, like-like a fever dream (laughs) like I almost can’t even remember it now, um, but I absolutely did not have an ending in mind when I first started it, I just kind of imagined it as like, Nicole going off on adventures from the game and then coming back to Waverly slash Purgatory, just kind of on a loop, indefinitely. The game’s really long and so like I could technically have her do that forever. Um, but kind of a-

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: -as I started like, writing it more and posting it and like, adding on to it and like, people started getting invested I’m like, “I really should have an end points in mind, somewhere.” Um, so I sat down and I like, finally just like wrote the epilogue for it, and like, everything that I want to have happen by the end of the story, and like everything I want Nicole to have, and Purgatory to have, and like Waverly to have, like everything sort of wrapped up. And then I just worked backwards from there and just reverse engineered, um, the outline from the epilogue. So as of right now, I do have an outline, and structurally it’s sort of in three parts. Um, so Part One was obviously Nicole like, becoming accepted into Purgatory and forming these base level relationships with all the characters there and with Waverly. And it ran much longer than I’d planned it to.

ALL: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: It meant to be maybe like ten chapters or something, um, and it-it just sprawled past that, um, partially just ‘cause I really wanted to emphasise that like, she is bonding with these people, she is developing relationships to the town, because in story terms she’s really only there for like, five and a half days.

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Like it’s-it’s r-it’s actually like, in story it’s a very short amount of time that she’s there, uh, so I wanted to make it clear that it is a very eventful and very like, emotionally meaningful five days.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, I mean, she wakes up from being shot in the head, she...with a pretty barmaid. 

GOLDENWAFFLES:Yeah it’s eventful. Mhmm 

DARKWICCAN: She-(laughs)-she goes rootin’ tootin’ shootin’ an-an-and is still very distrustful of-of a suspicious robot who’s supposed to be a nice guy.

GOLDENWAFFLES: Well he’s-he’s very mysterious and even in the game he’s very mysterious for like the entire game almost, so it’s... 

DELAYNE: (Laughs) So I will eventually get to know Victor’s intentions? Is that-is tha… (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Like in the-in the game? Uh, I mean, there are paths you can take where you could figure out his deal, um, and you’ll at least figure a little bit as time goes on. But like it’s, Victor’s mysterious even in the game. 

DELAYNE: So uh, will we perhaps learn more also in, ah, the fic?

GOLDENWAFFLES: About Victor? 

DELAYNE: Yeah.

GOLDENWAFFLES: Um...that’s a tricky one, I don’t actually know yet, like how much I’m going to say about him, um, which is a problem because now I’ve brought him up a lot. 

ALL: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: I had-

DELAYNE: My bad.

GOLDENWAFFLES: Oh no, I hadn-I hadn’t initially like, been sure about whether or not I was going to include him in the story, and then sort of like, after I had posted the first chapter I realised I’d namechecked him and I’m like, “Well, he’s in the story now” 

ALL: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Uh, which has worked out, he’s actually like, the most fun to write because, uh, he says very fun things, and he’s like, such a weird like, presence in the town, which he is in the game as well...so it’s like, he’s just fun to like, have in the story someone who will say like, “Well butter my butt an’ call me a biscuit”.

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Which he will...

DELAYNE: Oh ‘cause he’s definitely-yeah he brings the “yeehaw”.

GOLDENWAFFLES: He does, he helps with that.

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Uh, some other characters that I’ve eh-d-this whole extra-long beginning, um…

GOLDENWAFFLES: The prologue... the seventy-seventy five thousand word prologue, yes... 

DELAYNE: Yeah, the-the extended Part One, I totally don’t-do not mind because I am really enjoying the dynamic between the sisters, especially their dialogue, y’know, when you-you encounter all three of them first, and um, what was it that made you want to explore this dynamic of having all three of them at Shorty’s?

GOLDENWAFFLES: Yeah, that’s been like, one of the really interesting parts to write, especially because obviously in the show, um, it’s very different, with Willa being gone and then Waverly and Wynonna having this like, whole separate thing that they do with like, Black Badge where um, in this-in “Ain’t Love A Kick In The Head” it’s a lot more of like, a-just a family dynamic and like what would they all be like as a family. And that’s been kind of a-an interesting thing to-to look at. Um, planning the story I-I don’t even remember it being a question that it was going to be the three of them, um, I think somehow that was just the plan right from the word go. Y’know I was building up what I wanted my version of Purgatory to be, um, and like populating it with certain characters and it just sort of made sense that there needed to be some sort of internal conflict outside of like, the Revenants or the Legion or whatever. Um, so I felt like there had to be-it would be more interesting if there was someone there who like, didn’t want Nicole there, or who wanted to make trouble for Waverly or something like that. Just without the curse I feel like there needed to be something else pushing back against them… and so, like as far as options go, you don’t…(laughs).

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: I mean you’ve got like, the really big ones like Bobo and Bulshar um, from the show, but like I feel like the-a lot of the minor antagonists are just like, the “monster of the week” Revenants and so it couldn’t really be any of them that I could think of, um and I didn’t really want it to be Champ, just for my own reasons of like, I just didn’t wanna write that (laughs). 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: I just didn’t want like, him to be sniffing around the whole time, um…

ALL: (Laughs) 

GOLDENWAFFLES: So, I kinda-I’m sure-I’m sure that crossed my mind at some point as an option and I just immediately dismissed it, um so then you’ve got like-

DELAYNE: Teamplayer.

GOLDENWAFFLES: (Laughs) Yeah. Uh, so then I felt like maybe Lucado or like, Bunny Loblaw or something like that, and just they didn’t seem to fit an like we don’t see them a whole lot, and so...I guess it just seemed like Willa was the obvious choice, um, we see enough of her personality on the show, like at the end of Season One, that like, I felt like I could sort of like, imitate her-ish, um, although she’s much meaner here obviously, um, because this is from Nicole’s perspective. Um…

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: And all she sees is her like, her being mean to her and Waverly. Um, whereas if it were from Wynonna’s point of view it might be a little different. Um, because they probably have like, an actual relationship. As like, sisters who sort of get along, um, but writing Willa’s been interesting because she’s very fun to hate and like anytime she is in a scene, like the comments will be filled with like, “Urgh Willa whyyy?”

ALL: (Laughs) 

GOLDENWAFFLES: It’s just really fun to be annoyed with her all the time. Um…

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Uh, so you just kind of, like, a bully, but she’s really good at framing it like she’s just sort of concerned about her family and their safety and all of that, or concerned about their business, and you can tell that Wynonna wants to defend Waverly but she also has her own relationship to Willa that means she doesn’t wanna just like completely take sides, so she’s really caught in the middle… and so that’s been...I guess that’s been really fun to explore.

DELAYNE: Well it’s been fun to read. 

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, absolutely. Everytime uh, Nicole has to sneak in and out of Waverly’s bedroom window, I hold my breath a little bit, like, “Oh god, Willa’s going to be right around the corner, she’ll be outside gardening or something, I don’t know” 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: (Laughs) Yeah, and um, yeah there was some point like, after like the third or fourth night or something where like it seemed like all of the comments were like “Oh they’re gonna get caught, they’re gonna get caught” um, which was funny to me because I’m like “ What do you mean, like, Nicole’s leaving tomorrow…” then I’m like “Oh right, no one knows that except for me”.

ALL: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: I was like “Why’s everyone worrying about that now, she’s like, on her way out” and then I’m like, “Oh because like, Doc hasn’t given her the gun yet” and so like, I-yeah, the readers don’t know where the story is going, and I do, that’s…(laughs) I always forget that. 

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: It seems like a really obvious thing, but when I’m like “Oh that’s a weird time to focus on this considering what’s about to happen” like, “Oh right, they don’t know what’s about to happen.”

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs) Ah, it’s that delightful razors edge.

GOLDENWAFFLES: Being an audience member.

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs) Yes as an author you just get to sit back and go “Muahahaha”. Uh well, we are about out of time, uh, this has been a fantastic chat today. Um-

GOLDENWAFFLES: Yeah guys, thanks for having me on!

DARKWICCAN: -I’ve just loved sitting back and letting you and Delayne just go! (Laughs)

DELAYNE and GOLDENWAFFLES: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: That doesn’t get to happen very often (laughs).

DARKWICCAN: It really-it doesn’t because I am...horrible.

ALL: (Laughs) 

GOLDENWAFFLES: I guess I’m-I guess I’m a talker too from...apparently (laughs)

DARKWICCAN: No no, that’s good! That’s a good thing! That’s a very good thing. We want our authors to talk. 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: uh well, we do have one more thing to talk about though.

GOLDENWAFFLES: Yes.

DARKWICCAN: Uh, and that is of course our final question for you. And Delayne, since I let you kinda run this segment…

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: I’m going to ask the question this time. (Laughs)

DELAYNE: Ye-that’s-go right ahead. 

DARKWICCAN: Ok. Waffles, I love your name (laughs).

GOLDENWAFFLES: Thanks (laughs)

DARKWICCAN: It’s a fun name to say. Uh, you are stranded on a desert island and have only one fanfic to read, what is it? 

GOLDENWAFFLES: Ok, so, it’s hard because I have a real soft spot for one shots, and they are a little bit short for desert island reading.

DARKWICCAN: This is true.

GOLDENWAFFLES: Um, but right now I think my answer is probably, um, “Just Try Not To Die, Okay?” by Maidenstar. Um, friend of this show Maidenstar, I feel like I should say at this point. (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, th-that’s absolutely true (laughs).

GOLDENWAFFLES: Um, which is technically a one shot, but it’s like, twenty two thousand words long, and so I feel like it would keep me going.

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: And I’m a real sucker for the sort of like, fluff and angst, and character study, and like, all of my favourite headcanons and like, really good writing, so...so yeah I think that one.

DARKWICCAN: You’re a-you’re a sucker for all the things I’m a sucker for.

ALL: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: It’s just a good-just a good story.

DARKWICCAN: It is a fantastic story. And I am more than happy, er, to provide a link in the shownotes for “Just Try Not To Die, Okay?” by Maidenstar. Uh, GoldenWaffles, I am so thrilled you came on this show to chat with us today, and I am very-very much intrigued and looking forward to Part Two of “Ain’t Love A Kick In The Head”.

GOLDENWAFFLES: Yes, well thanks for having me on, and er, like I said, it was nice to meet both of you, and I hope everyone enjoys, er, the parts to come.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, and if you don’t have anything else to do, while we’re all stuck at home, play Fallout New Vegas.

GOLDENWAFFLES: Yes.

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: Um, by all means, an-and if you do, I’m sorry, it’s very glitchy, it’s just part of it’s charm.

DELAYNE and GOLDENWAFFLES: (Laughs)

GOLDENWAFFLES: You will occasionally appear inside boulders and you just have to accept that that’s a thing that will happen. 

ALL: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: Or your companion gets stuck in-and is just not following you and then just like, running, stuck… Anyway. (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Running into those invisible walls, gotta watch out for those. 

DELAYNE: Yes.

GOLDENWAFFLES: Yes. Autosaving right before you die, that sort of thing (laughs).

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs) Well I’m gonna make sure that we autosave this conversation.

DELAYNE and GOLDENWAFFLES: (Laughs)

MUSIC: Don’t Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Maddigan

DARKWICCAN: And that's all for this episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Thanks for joining us.

Tremendous thanks to GoldenWaffles for chatting with us about their work!

  
  


Thanks also to our announcer Byron Tidwell for our intro 

Background music for the episode was:

A Proper Story by Darren Korb

Rail Hoppin' by Ryan Ike

Hoe Down from Rodeo by Aaron Copland

and the outro music is Don't Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Madigan

  
  


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And you can find all of our episodes, old and new, at our website E-F-A Podcast dot com.

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Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you'll join us again next time for another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Until then, READ MORE FIC!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Episodes post Mondays at 8am PST
> 
> Visit our Website http://efapodcast.com/ for all episodes old and new!
> 
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> 
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	13. Galloping Chat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This week we feature a hostful episode with DW, Delayne and Laragh as they chat with their pal and former Kittenboard resident sometimeswaverlydresseslikeahooker about her mail-order bride AU!

[Click HERE to Listen!](http://efapodcast.com/galloping-chat)

Read the Fic!

####  [The Bride Came D.O.A. (A WayHaught A/U)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16299323) by [SometimesWaverlyDressesLikeAHooker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SometimesWaverlyDressesLikeAHooker/pseuds/SometimesWaverlyDressesLikeAHooker)

Episode artwork by Chantal Zeegers

SometimesWaverlyDressesLikeAHooker's Desert Island Fic Selection is: [Stop Making Eyes At Me (But I Don't Really Want You To)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10860639) by [Half](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Half/pseuds/Half) & [TheGaySmurf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGaySmurf/pseuds/TheGaySmurf)

Episode transcript by ApproxTenCats

Ep 413: Galloping Chat

[ph] – Indicates preceding word has been spelled phonetically

[sic] – Indicates preceding word has been transcribed verbatim

MUSIC : Write My Story by Olly Anna

ANNOUNCER GUY : You've tuned in to the  _ Earp Fiction Addiction _ , a fan podcast all about  _ Wynonna Earp _ fanfiction. Join our intrepid host DarkWiccan and Delayne as they dive deep into the sometimes sweet, sometimes spicy, and always varied world of fanfiction for the  _ Wynonna Earp _ fandom.

MUSIC : A Proper Story by Darren Korb

DARKWICCAN:  Thanks Announcer Guy and welcome everybody to another episode of the  _ Earp Fiction Addiction _ , the podcast dedicated entirely to  _ Wynonna Earp _ fanfiction. I am your host DarkWiccan and with me are my two delightful co-hosts, one of them right here in the US of A--

DELAYNE: Hi, it’s Delayne.

DARKWICCAN: And the other one all the way over in lovely Ireland.

LARAGH: Hey, it’s Laragh.

DARKWICCAN: Hello you two.

LARAGH: Hi.

DELAYNE: Hi.

DARKWICCAN: So I’m going to demystify-- I’m going to jump behind the scenes for this episode real quick, and share a secret with our audience. This is the second time we’re recording this segment.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

LARAGH: Yes it is.

DARKWICCAN: Because the first time we had some technical difficulties and didn’t realise how bad they were until I went to go and edit the segment, and went, “oh, yeah, I can’t fix that with my mad wizarding skills.” So we’re back, we’re talking about this story for the second time. Which you know what? I love this story so I’m cool with it. You guys cool with it?

LARAGH: I’m good with it.

DARKWICCAN: Awesome.

DELAYNE: Works for me [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Sweet, excellent. Before we dive into that though, a couple of announcements, [CONTENT CENSORED. PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT] Now in addition to our usual announcement, weekly announcement of “we have links and please visit them and welcome to new members” and things like that, we have another announcement. Y’all guess what time of year it is? 

DELAYNE: What? 

DARKWICCAN: You sound so enthusiastic.

LARAGH: I mean these days it’s so many different times of year all at once.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: That’s true. Well, what month is it even?

DELAYNE: Time has no meaning anymore.

LARAGH: Yeah, exactly.

DARKWICCAN: Time doesn’t, no. Well this year I decided to attempt to give time meaning and in our schedule, our behind the scenes calendar of episodes that we have scheduled, I included notes to myself as to when the fanfic challenge would be starting. So that, unlike previous years where I just made the announcement on Twitter, this year we could make the announcement on the show, and that’s what we’re doing.

DELAYNE: Hey.

DARKWICCAN: It is that time once again my friends, the  _ Earp Fiction Addiction _ Fanfic Challenge. Now, those of you who have participated in the challenge previously are familiar with these rules, and they’re very simple. I’m going to give a one word prompt, you’ll then have a period of a few weeks to write a fanfiction, Wayhaught, or  _ Wynonna Earp _ , doesn’t have to be Wayhaught, fanfiction based around this prompt. And then we have a period where the three of us, Delayne, Laragh, and myself, will sit down and read every single submission. And vote on it, and narrow down the field to 16 stories that will then go into a bracketed vote off for the next four weeks, where you dear listeners and readers will have the opportunity to read the fics and vote on your faves. And ultimately at the end of four weeks we have a winner. And the winner of the fanfiction challenge will then have their story turned into an audiobook by moi, and will be shared as the season finale episode. We’ll air the audiobook and then we will interview the author. So that is the fanfic challenge. The rules are simple. 4,000 words or less. Not to exceed--

DELAYNE: Four?

DARKWICCAN: Yes.

DELAYNE: I thought it was two.

DARKWICCAN: That’s for the live reads.

DELAYNE: Oh. Okay. Sorry.

DARKWICCAN: That’s okay. So to underscore 4,000 words or less, not higher than a T rating, that’s also different from the live reads where we don’t have a rating limit. So not higher than a T rating.

DELAYNE: That I remember. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: And your submission must be in to AO3 by 11:59 August 9th. Your story should be admitted to AO3. So we’re giving you really five weeks which is a week more than usual, to come up with these stories. Hopefully that’s enough time. So again, 4,000 words, no higher than a T rating, uploaded to AO3 by no later than 11:59PM on August 9th. Now, one thing I haven’t told you yet is the prompt word. Why? Because I’m stalling.

DELAYNE/LARAGH: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: But I’ve got one for you. The prompt word is “tender”. T-E-N-D-E-R is the prompt word, tender. Tender is a great word because it has multiple meanings, like many words in the English language, but you can really take this to mean a variety of things and I’m very excited to see what our submitting authors come up with in their stories. So pens to paper my good friends. Let’s see what you got for us by August 9th, 11:59PM, 4,000 words or less, no higher than a T rating. Good luck to everybody, we’re excited to see what you got for us.

DELAYNE: Yay.

DARKWICCAN: Yay. Okay, so we’ve done all that chit chat. Let’s talk about this story. Now the story that we’re revisiting for the first second time today is a story called  _ The Bride Came DOA _ . 

DELAYNE: And who’s it by?

LARAGH: Who’s it by? Yeah? [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: It’s by the author whose pseudonym is [speaking fast] SometimesWaverlyDressesLikeAHooker. Which Delayne and Laragh just love making me say, repeatedly.

DELAYNE: Because you hate saying it so much.

DARKWICCAN: Okay, well, here’s the deal. I think it’s a hilarious username, I think it is hilarious, I love it to read it. It’s awkward to say out loud.

DELAYNE: [laughs] Okay, I’ll give you that,

DARKWICCAN: No name shaming here, no name shaming. I think it’s a great name. It’s just awkward to say out loud, that’s it.  _ So The Bride Came DOA _ is a mistaken identity mail-order-bride western, yeah.

DELAYNE: [laughs] yeah.

DARKWICCAN: A good chunk of the first portion of the story, the chapters are letters between the two main characters, who start off as the characters Nikki and Michelle. And I’m just going to go ahead and give it away you guys, Nikki and Michelle are Nicole and Waverly.

LARAGH: No.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Shock. Yeah, Waverly has opted to go by her middle name because she didn’t care for her first name Waverly. Which we had this whole chat about in our previous segment recording, so Delayne kick us off with that.

DELAYNE: Right, cause spoiler right? [laughs] That Waverly Michelle, well-- oh god.

DARKWICCAN: Well, I think we talked about the first time we went through was that it’s now currently unusual for folks to go by their middle name, or it’s not unusual it’s just kind of rare.

DELAYNE: Right.

DARKWICCAN: Whereas a while back, even as recent as the 50s and 60s, folks would go by their middle name because their first name was something just boring and dull. But their middle names were usually something interesting. Or their first name was a family name and they didn’t want to get confused with the other family members who had the same name.

DELAYNE: [laughs] So you want me to re-say all that or?

DARKWICCAN: No unfortunately I think I’ve covered it for you.

DELAYNE: I do like the way it starts by Nikki and Michelle. It helps build this world as an other world, as an AU.

DARKWICCAN: Yes.

DELAYNE: Yes, so going by the middle name was definitely more common and in this case, Waverly Michelle obviously, the family name was put as the middle name. But Waverly, what a weird name so-- 

DARKWICCAN: Yes.

DELAYNE: Yes. And then we’ve had this debate about calling Nicole Nikki many times, but in this case it works well, and I like it.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, I’m not bothered by it in this instance.

LARAGH: No, me neither.

DARKWICCAN: It’s totally fine, it doesn’t bother me in the least in this instance. There are instances where I will kind of cringe, but it makes so much sense here, and because we get to know the character as Nikki first. And Nikki N-I-K-K-I, not N-I-C-K-Y. 

DELAYNE: I knew it Nickie growing up. So there are many ways to Nikki I guess.

DARKWICCAN: There are, there are definitely different ways to Nikki.

LARAGH: There are lots of different ways to Nikki depending on your preferences.

DARKWICCAN: But you know what else? This also has an element of slow burn, this story.

DELAYNE: Oh yeah. Wow.

DARKWICCAN: Like these two don’t even meet in person until the chapter 30s, the chapter 30s somewhere. I want to say it’s chapter 32, chapter 33. It’s chapter 31 or 32, it’s one of those. This story so far has got 60 chapters, it’s still going. The two of them don’t even meet in person until chapter 31 or 32. And they still don’t know things about each other at that point. It’s a whole thing you guys, this is a complicated story. But it’s a good story, it’s definitely a story that engages you.

LARAGH: I just think, yeah it’s really engaging, it’s really fun. It’s written quite lyrically.

DELAYNE: That makes sense because it was inspired by mail-order-bride songs, you know folk songs. I can go lyrical, I like that.

DARKWICCAN: And of course  _ The Bride Came DOA _ is a parody on  _ The Bride Came COD _ .

LARAGH: Which is hilarious. It’s really subtle, I like that, it’s a subtle joke.

DARKWICCAN: It is a subtle joke. You really have to know, you gotta be in the know to get the joke, you have to. But I really also love the fact that it’s called  _ The Bride Came DOA _ and you kind of go, “oh, okay.” Because DOA means dead on arrival, so you go, “okay.” What a light hearted romp this is going to be. But it does end up being a bit of a lighthearted romp, in spite of the angst, that does play itself out here and there. But essentially, I did mention it’s kind of a mistaken identity AU. One of tthe mistakes in the mistaken identity is that each one thinks the other of them is dead. So it’s a whole thing you guys. They genuinely do not have any clue that the person they are with is the person who they are. Does that make any sense?

LARAGH: I mean should we mention the fact that Waverly in particular would not even begin to suspect, even without the whole dead thing? 

DARKWICCAN: Oh true, because this is another story where we have-- it’s another Old West Pioneer story where we have a cross dressing Nicole. We have a Nicole who is dressing as a man, to pass as a man, really for her own safety and freedom. And she sort of stumbles into this necessity fairly early in the story. After the first mistaken news. There’s a lot of misinformation that happens that gets to both characters, and again remember up to chapter 30 it’s almost-- I mean we do get to a point--

DELAYNE: I think chapter nine starts the letters.

DARKWICCAN: Chapter nine starts the letters between Waverly and Cole. Up to that is the letters between Nikki and Michelle with a little break when Nikki gets misinformation and decides to head west.

DELAYNE: Because Nikki is sad.

DARKWICCAN: Nikki is a sad Nikki. I thought it was really interesting that the author chose to have Nikki refer to her mother in the very sort of upper crusty well-to-do manner of Maman. “Oh maman, oh maman.” Because not only does it suggest money and wealth in her family, which is different to Waverly’s situation, but it also suggests that she’s very feminine as a woman. She's very feminine, very girly. So in spite having grown up, her family owns a lumber mill if I recall correctly, so she definitely did have periods of time where she rolled up her sleeves and swung an axe with her brothers. She has brothers in this story by the way. But ultimately she’s very much a feminine woman so when she has to, it’s that much more of a dynamic shift for her to go from, “oh maman,” to--

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: -to masquerading as Cole the lumberjack.

DELAYNE: Hey, any reason for Nicole to swing an axe, really.

DARKWICCAN: Any reason at all.

DELAYNE: I want to go back to the why-they-won’t-suspect thing, are we ready for this? The whole name thing. Because when they meet as Cole and Waverly, obviously they have different names.

DARKWICCAN: Mhmm, and different last names.

DELAYNE: That’s where I was going. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: I’m sorry, you go ahead and say it, I didn’t know it was a dramatic pause.

DELAYNE: No, the dramatic pause was me clearing my throat. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Okay.

DELAYNE: Yes, so Michelle, what was it? Gibson?

DARKWICCAN: Mhmm.

DELAYNE: Michelle Gibson is now known as Waverly Earp because she learns that Ward Gibson is not her father, and Julian Earp is, which mind blown because how big of a deal is it that in canon Waverly is not an Earp, and in this story Waverly is the Earp.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, that’s huge. I will say this, the author really really really enjoys taking the characters and just using them however they want to. 

DELAYNE: Flipping everything on its head, yeah.

DARKWICCAN: Everything. Literally, like Wynonna is married to Randy Nedley.

LARAGH: Junior.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Junior, but still, but still. You get the picture of Nedley, I get the picture of young Nedley, you know the photograph of season three episode seven, young Nicole and young Nedley.

DELAYNE: So you’re picturing--

DARKWICCAN: I’m picturing Randy, I’m picturing Randy with Wynonna and they’re happily married, like that’s a thing. That’s unusual. We’ve got Dolls on the scene as a friend of Cole’s and he’s got a whole wife and kids, it’s a whole thing. It’s basically like SometimesWaverlyDressesLikeAHooker took the character names and just threw them into a little jumble bag, went [imitating shaking noises] chicka-chicka-chicka-chicka, set Waverly and Nicole aside, but everybody else chicka-chicka-chicka-chicka. And just started randomly pulling them out and pairing them, “okay, that’s what it’s going to be.” Which I think is great. I think it is really fun. It’s fun as a reader because you get so used to this sort of canon-adjacent, or canon-divergent storytelling. This is AU through and through. The only thing that’s true to canon is the fact that Waverly and Nicole are together but really that’s just because they’re together, it has nothing to do with their relationship in canon otherwise. So I love it.

LARAGH: It’s, it’s, yeah.

DELAYNE: Dramatic pause.

LARAGH: Dramatic pause. It’s fun, it’s a lot of fun to not have to worry too much about the characterisations and stuff.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, and I will say that both Nicole and Waverly here are spunky spitfire characters, I mean especially Waverly, there’s no holding her back.

LARAGH: Right, she shoots the head clean off a snake.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, she ain't got time for that nonsense. So you’ll notice the episode title is “Galloping Chat'' and that I take that from theatre days when I was working with a theatre company that specialised in classical works. And one of the directors, not the main artistic director, but one of the directors for the company was really emphatical about any dialogue spoken, be spoken at a pace. So no waxing lyrical over Shakespearean dialogue, or Chekovian or whatever. You kind of had to keep it moving, keep it moving folks. So the joke was-- the name of the theatre company was Tact, T-A-C-T. We called it Galloping Tact. So this is an inside joke I’m letting you all in on me calling this Galloping Chat, because the dialogue between Waverly and Nicole is so fast. To me it reads like a 1920s/1930s style comedy that would feature a blue blood family or families, kind of like  _ The Philadelphia Story _ , if you’ve ever seen _ The Philadelphia Story _ starring Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart. Everybody speaks really quickly and they have this sort of very specific New England sound and that is what I hear when I’m reading this dialogue. Here, I just pulled up a section--

DELAYNE: Okay good, because I was like are we gonna get an example? Because it’s so great.

DARKWICCAN: So I’m going to read as Waverly first and then Nicole follows:

“Fine I admit it, your Rocky Mountains are quite breathtaking but I reserve future judgement until we are closer”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Because you’re strangely perceptive for a man?”

“And you my friend are unquestionably an untamed mustang of a woman.”

“Thank you.”

[laughs] Yeah, so another thing is that you really gotta pay attention to who speaks first in these runs of dialogue because you’re not going to get any help after that first sentence. It might be as simple as a “he said” or “she spoke” for that first line and then it’s just dialogue dialogue dialogue dialogue with no clue as to who’s saying what. So you better pay attention because you’re only going to get a reminder once every six or seven lines of dialogue who’s speaking at the time. So that makes it a little tricky as a reader I think, especially if you’re a fast reader like me where I’m just like prrrrrr [ph] through. But it might be easier if you’re a naturally slower reader, or a normal reader. [laughs] But for me there are multiple times where I’ve had to stop and, “wait, who said that line? Because it doesn’t make sense, the person in my head whose voice said it so, backing up six or seven lines, forward okay, Waverly, Nicole, Waverly, Nicole, okay, that’s who said it, that makes more sense, moving on.” But the thing that you get when you don’t have those reminders who’s speaking is you do get that kind of galloping pace of dialogue, at least in my head. 

LARAGH: Well now I won’t be able to read it and think anything else.

DARKWICCAN: Well, you’re welcome my friend, you’re welcome.

DELAYNE: Especially the voices.

LARAGH: Especially the voices, yeah. I’m going to hear old timey music.

DARKWICCAN: [laughs] You know what I picture when they’re on Nicole’s homestead, essentially there’s a homestead up in the wilds of Montana I believe.

LARAGH: It’s Montana, yeah.

DELAYNE: Mon-Canada.

DARKWICCAN: Right, Mon-Canada. I always hear the sort of [sings to the tune of Humoresque by Dvorak] Da-dun-da-dun-da-dun-da-dun-da-dun-da-dun. Opening on the scene setting, the establishing shot, playing with a fiddle and a banjo. [laughs] Oh my gosh, okay. Was there anything else we wanted to touch on with this story that we touched on when we recorded this segment before that we haven’t hit that you really want to get to before we move on? 

DELAYNE: I think I added stuff in even this time.

DARKWICCAN: That’s great, that’s good, that’s good.

LARAGH: And I made an ass out of myself so we’re all [inaudible], we’ve got a full rounded episode.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: No you did not.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Okay, so my friends shall we travel back in time to our interview with the author SometimesWaverlyDressesLikeAHooker? 

DELAYNE: Sounds great.

[CONTENT CENSORED. PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT] 

  
  


MUSIC: Humoresque by Antonin Dvorak

  
  


DARKWICCAN: And welcome back everybody to the  _ Earp Fiction Addiction _ , the podcast dedicated entirely to  _ Wynonna Earp _ fanfiction. I remain your host DarkWiccan and with me are my lovely co-hosts, from right here in the USA.

DELAYNE: Hi, it’s Delayne.

DARKWICCAN: And from across the pond in bonny Ireland.

LARAGH: Hey, it’s Laragh.

DARKWICCAN: And we are super excited to be joined by the amazing author of the fic we were discussing before the break,  _ The Bride Came DOA _ , SometimesWaverlyDressesLikeAHooker who we’re going to call Sandi today. Sandi, welcome to the show.

SANDI: Hi guys, thanks for having me.

DARKWICCAN: Thanks for coming on. We had a blast chatting about this story today. It’s one of those stories that you can’t put it down once you pick it up, you know? 

SANDI: That was the plan.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Excellent. 

DELAYNE: Evil laugh, ha ha. The plan is working.

SANDI: Ha ha, yes.

DARKWICCAN: And we mentioned this briefly in the first segment but Sandi we actually know you and you sort of know us, especially you know Laragh, from the Kitten Board, our old Willow/Tara hang out.

SANDI: Yep, does that even still exist?

DARKWICCAN: It does still exist.

SANDI: It does?

LARAGH: I say indignantly, yes it does.

SANDI: Okay, I’m sorry, I did not mean to offend. 

DELAYNE: Laragh is still manning the posts there and making sure it’s alive and well and continuing, even though some of us don’t visit very often.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, we don’t call, we don’t write, yeah.

SANDI: Ungrateful children. I found more life there when I split. That’s right. Did a little writing, found a wife, got out of there.

DARKWICCAN: What? You mean that wasn’t the purpose of the Kitten Board?

LARAGH: it was my purpose, it hasn’t worked out yet though.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Well, I know at least two people who met their wives on the KB. 

LARAGH: Oh yeah, there’s a few people.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, there were a few, there were a few.

SANDI: [inaudible] twelve years.

DARKWICCAN: I mean, that just happens in fandom right? I mean gosh, look at the  _ Wynonna Earp _ fandom, how many-

DELAYNE: Oh my goodness.

DARKWICCAN: -couplings we’ve had. And weddings. Emily has even overseen a wedding or two. Or one. She’s overseen one.

SANDI: Pretty crazy. And back in the day we thought meeting Amber was a big deal right? They didn’t have cons for Buffy, or they did and I didn’t know about it.

DARKWICCAN: I don’t think there were any Buffy specific--

SANDI: They were pretty crazy fans. 

LARAGH: They did like Whedon events, not just Buffy.

DARKWICCAN: Ugh, Whedon.

LARAGH: Sorry for uttering the name.

DELAYNE: Anyway--

DARKWICCAN: Oh man. Anyway onto happier times and showrunners who support us.

SANDI: Yeah really, who don’t say, “I know what they need. Not what they want.”

DARKWICCAN: Oh god. [unintelligible angry noises] 

LARAGH: I’d forgotten about that.

DARKWICCAN: Had you just blocked it out of your brain like this is an unhappy thought that I don’t want to consider.

LARAGH: Just like season seven I had blocked it out of my brain and now it’s all come rushing back.

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: [singing] There were nights when the wind was so cold. Sorry, it’s all coming back to you now?

SANDI: [singing] They got the mustard out.

DARKWICCAN: [laughs]

LARAGH: Nobody start singing  _ Under Your Spell _ or I’ll cry. 

DARKWICCAN: Oh man, so Sandi, you were obviously part of the Willow/Tara fandom, you are now part of the  _ Wynonna Earp _ fandom. What drew you to  _ Wynonna Earp _ ? 

SANDI: Well, I’m not certain but after I watched the first episode that was it. [laughs] I would say, of course, the Waverly and Nicole meeting at Shorty’s scene, that was the anchor around my neck, I wasn’t getting away after that. 

DARKWICCAN: So true for most of us.

SANDI: Nicole, please. 

DARKWICCAN: Right.

DELAYNE: Came for the gay and stayed for the cray. 

DARKWICCAN: [laughs] Okay so I gotta ask you about your author pseud over on AO3. SometimesWaverlyDressesLikeAHooker.

SANDI: It’s true.

DARKWICCAN: I’m not disagreeing with you.

SANDI: Well I’ll tell you where I came up with that name. That would be the episode with the Marzaniok and Waverly’s wearing the tall pink velvet boots, and the shiny shirt and the miniskirt and I was like, “girl is dressed like a ho.” [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: But was that Waverly or was that Gooverly?

SANDI: I guess it was Gooverly but I mean, wasn’t Waverly wearing silver hip boots in another episode before Gooverly? I think she was.

DARKWICCAN: Was she? I’d have to go back to season one because she was-- but anyway, it’s one of those names where like-- okay Delayne and Laragh kept making me say your author’s pseud over and over in the previous segment. And when I say over and over, like three times. But still it was, “this is a very long name, and it’s a lot.”

SANDI: Yeah. It’s something I said to Diane while we were watching it one day and she was like “hmm, yeah.” And it stuck. I wanted something distinctive that people would remember so.

DARKWICCAN: It worked.

DELAYNE: It is definitely memorable.

DARKWICCAN: Mission accomplished. Mission accomplished for sure.

DELAYNE: Easy to search. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Yes. Well no it’s not because you have to get all the words together.

DELAYNE: Well I meant you don’t get other weird things popping up when you search that.

DARKWICCAN: Well that’s true. That’s true. Fair enough. So let’s get down to chatting about this story in particular,  _ The Bride Came DOA _ . 60 chapters at this point, still unfinished, seems like you’re starting a new arc with this most recent chapter?

SANDI: Perhaps a mini-arc.

DARKWICCAN: A mini-arc, okay. 

SANDI: I mean this is not going to be 120 chapters I can tell you that.

DARKWICCAN: Okay, okay.

SANDI: I’m not going to say we are at the end, or getting close to the end, but we’re getting where we’d see the end if we squinted, you know what I’m saying?

DARKWICCAN: We’re approaching the downhill slide.

SANDI: There will be a couple of time jumps because how much can you possibly write, you know what I mean? Without it being all fluff. There’ll be a couple of time jumps. But I’m not going to do one of those things where they live happily ever after and then the end. One of my pet peeves.

DELAYNE: Which is what I do.

SANDI: When they kiss, and they get engaged, or they have sex for the first time, no there’s more to the story then I keep going. I said from the beginning this is the story of a life kind of thing?

DARKWICCAN: Nice.

SANDI: So, yeah. Not to kill the ending but it’s going to be basically, when they end it ends.

DARKWICCAN: Oh, okay, gotcha. Well you know what, as far as this style of story, when I say style I guess I mean genre, Western genre, that is more or less how the author of the  _ Heart _ series approached it as well. Kind of a similar time period as well to this, and also very much a story of a life. And when they ended the story ended. I think that’s great, I love seeing a full and complete, you know-- yeah.

DELAYNE: A full fic of a full life.

DARKWICCAN: Yes exactly, Delayne, so yes.

DELAYNE: See I can word sometimes. [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: You can word, you can word, I’m very proud of you. So unfortunately it looks like Laragh has lost her connection so I’m just going to press on here and ask was this period in history one that interested you before this fic or did you have to go down a deep rabbit hole to sort of let it play out?

SANDI: Well, I mean I’ve always been fascinated with the period, I mean the whole homesteading frontier thing you know. People take these enormous leaps of faith just so they get some land and the chance of a new life you know. And particularly the mail order bride thing, I mean totally unnatural but people did it anyways because it’s a chance at something better and that always has fascinated me.

DELAYNE: And also how are you supposed to meet people out in the middle of nowhere?

SANDI: Exactly. Hence the whole mail order bride thing, there were very few women out there, other than prostitutes mainly so if you wanted a wife you pretty much had to find one somewhere else. Kind of like being queer in a small town.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah.

DELAYNE: So you’ve got to go to the Kitten Board to find one.

SANDI: They didn’t have the internet so they did mail order brides, you know. As far as going down the rabbit hole, I’d say I didn’t have to go down the rabbit hole, I chose to go down the rabbit hole because I love the rabbit hole. I’m a huge research geek, I’m never as happy as when I'm researching something.

DELAYNE: Good answer, I love that.

DARKWICCAN: Spoken like a true fic author.

SANDI: Although I have never done as much research for any story as I have for this. I mean, I went nuts on this thing, I’ve read pioneer diaries, I’ve read all about the transcontinental railroad, eye witness accounts of people that have been on it, some I included in the story verbatim. I researched-- I mean really crazy, I looked into all the different territories to see which one would be the best one for them to move into and what year would be best to set the story.

DARKWICCAN: What year is it? By the way.

SANDI: The story starts in 1870.

DARKWICCAN: Ah. Laragh you were correct.

SANDI: So at this point in the story it would be 1871.

DARKWICCAN: [incredulous] Only a year has passed?

SANDI: Yeah, they just had their first anniversary so yeah. I was trying to make it kind of a real time thing, although not a real real time thing but yeah.

DARKWICCAN: But wait a minute, okay, hang on hang on. So you’re saying the story started in 1870 and it’s 1871 now but they had a whole bunch of pen pal stuff happening prior to getting married, and you have to factor in the amount of time it takes for mail to travel.

SANDI: I know.

DARKWICCAN: Okay.

SANDI: The other parts of the story, once they’re together, doesn’t really say how much time has passed since the last little part of the story. Could be a day apart, could be a month apart, could be a week apart. You know.

DARKWICCAN: True. I’m just trying to reconcile-- so the story starts in 1870 and chapter 60 they’ve celebrated their first year of marriage.

SANDI: Yeah.

DARKWICCAN: And it’s still 1871?

SANDI: Yes, but we don’t know how far into 1871 it is. I never specified what month they got married. September October, you know.

DARKWICCAN: Okay.

SANDI: It’s my world, you just have to live in it. Calm down. [laughs]

LARAGH: Of all of the things to nitpick about.

DARKWICCAN: Absolutely, absolutely, it’s totally fair, totally fair.

SANDI: Just let go of your reality and let it flow over you.

DARKWICCAN: Okay, so speaking of realities and recognising one another’s reality, the pace of the story is very fast, the writing flows very fast. But the reveals have been a delicious torture in how drawn out they’ve been. So was it difficult maintaining the characters' ignorance of each other in this protracted way?

SANDI: I’d say difficult isn’t a word I would use, more like fun. To answer a question that you’ve all probably asked yourself more than once yes I do in fact enjoy torturing you. [all laugh] Although probably teasing is a better term. But when I said slow burn I meant it.

DARKWICCAN: I love that it’s still a slow burn even after they’re married.

SANDI: Exactly, exactly.

DELAYNE: [laughs] That’s how slow it is.

SANDI: Actually the pace is a deliberate choice I made. I knew the story would be kind of a marathon. I decided I’d give it the feel of the old western movies you watch that would eat your whole afternoon and you don’t know where the time went, you know. I tried to keep it as organic as possible, so the conversations feel like they’re happening in real time, but it’s also got that cinematic scope to it. The whole saga thing you have with westerns. Hopefully you feel that, I don’t know, but that’s what I was trying for.

DELAYNE: Actually yes, it does come across.

DARKWICCAN: Yes, it does.

SANDI: That’s also why I started out the first couple of chapters in first person and then it transitioned to omniscient so it would feel like the beginning of a movie opening with narration and then going into visual storytelling. That was also kind of a choice to make it like that. As for the characters “protracted ignorance,” as you call it, although I prefer to think of it as maintaining suspense--

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Well, that’s what the author is doing. The characters however are just ignorant of each other.

LARAGH: DW you just got owned.

SANDI: Well, if you think about it-- okay, it’s not really that much of a stretch. You gotta look at what they’re going through. It's not really that much of a stretch that it didn’t occur to them that this could be Nikki and Michelle, because as far as they know they’re dead. And nine times out of ten people are just going to take things at surface value, because it’s much easier that way. Especially if you’re in a situation like they’re in where there is a lot of emotional pain. You’re not going to want to poke at that sore spot, you know? They’re not going to be inclined to look beyond the surface and think, “hmm, there’s a lot of coincidences here, I wonder if this is my dead lover.” It’s not likely that they’re going to make that connection because as far as they know they’re dead. So it’s not going to occur to them. So however manufactured the ignorance might seem it actually does make a kind of sense.

DELAYNE: I will agree with you, that does make sense.

DARKWICCAN: Well I guess what surprised me was-- it makes sense to me to not stir the pot of your partner’s sadness, you know. But to me because it feels longer than a year that they’ve been together, to me-- and I’m not-- okay listen, your choices as the author are valid and correct. I’m saying me, as a reader, it surprised me that at some point one of them didn’t divulge their past, at least the name of their past love to the other. That’s what surprised me, because they clicked so well together and were almost immediately on the same page with each other in every other way that matters, it just surprised me that sharing their lives together they also weren’t sharing bits and pieces of their history over time.

SANDI: Well, both of them got losses fairly recent, and they’re not really gonna want to get into it, they’re kind of in denial, heavy grief, don’t want to deal with it right now thing because they’re having to deal with this new thing. So they’re still dealing with the grief inside themselves and not ready to talk to the other person about that. And at some point I think Nicole is like-- one of them gets all guilty about thinking about the previous one at the same time. They almost feel like it’s a betrayal to be doing this so they’re not going to be thinking about the two-- its-- I know what I mean but it’s hard to explain.

DELAYNE: [laughs] I get what you’re saying.

DARKWICCAN: I do too, I do too, yeah. 

SANDI: They’re just not ready to talk about it I guess.

DELAYNE: You are very well spoken about your fic. You have an excellent understanding and purpose and knowledge of your choices. And I love that. Because when I write a fic I have no idea what I’m doing.

SANDI: When I write a fic, from the very first word I put down, I already know what’s going to happen and when all the way through. As a matter of fact I’ve known the last line to this fic from chapter 15.

DARKWICCAN: Woah.

SANDI: That’s why when people in the comments try to rush me to go faster I just laugh like, “babe, it’s already written in my head. I’m not going to change it.” You know there’s the fluff chapters in between but the major stuff I already know what’s going to happen and when. Except for the next chapter because I have no idea what’s going to happen in the next chapter.

ALL: [laughs]

SANDI: I’ve got to come up with something, because I cannot write two fluff chapters in a row, that’s just hmm. The problem with fluff chapters is they don’t really lead you anywhere.

DARKWICCAN: Right, yeah.

SANDI: If you have something of significance you know, “okay, this is going to happen, this goes with this.” But if it’s a fluff chapter, eh. One of the hardest times I had was writing the one after the Christmas chapter, I had no idea where I was going.

DELAYNE: Well, I’m going to bring it back around to some of your earlier chapters, you posted in your notes about two songs that helped you inspire this fic. Now I did search them because at first I thought maybe they were books But I went ahead and listened to them and definitely some good quality storytelling folky music. I just wanted to know more about what was it about the songs, the inspiration for this fic, for you? 

SANDI: Well, the Harry Chapin song,  _ Mail-Order Annie _ . As some of you know I’m kind of old. For people in this fandom I'm 55 so I came up in the 60s and 70s and was a Harry Chapin fan back in the day and that’s a song that I’ve known for a long time. I know the words by heart and all that.

DARKWICCAN: Mary Chapin Carpenter?

SANDI: Harry Chapin

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Oh Harry Chapin, sorry.

SANDI: He’s from the 70s.

DARKWICCAN: Listen, there was a blip on the track.

SANDI: Okay. I also like Mary Chapin Carpenter but that’s not who we’re talking about.

DELAYNE: [continues laughing] Yeah. 

SANDI: The Harry Chapin song most people know is  _ Taxi _ .

DARKWICCAN: Oh, yes. Okay, okay.

SANDI: “It was raining hard in ‘Frisco’” that song. So I knew that from way back and when I started doing research for this, getting the idea that this would be good fodder for a story, the whole mail order bride thing, and the Mark Knopfler song came up,  _ Prairie Wedding _ . The two songs are so very different that I was like, “you know, there’s a lot here.” They’re not only different from each other but they’ve got juxtapositions within their own structure. The Harry Chapin song is very melodic, it’s got full strings and backing vocals and a dramatic bridge, but if you listen to the lyrics there’s nothing romantic about that song. “I didn’t think it would be you, but there’s nobody else that got off the train, well now you’re not as attractive as I’d hoped you would be.” And she starts crying because he’s being an asshole and it’s like, “look, I know I’m no great shakes either, but you got kicked out of your house so we might as well give it a shot.” Not a very romantic song.

DARKWICCAN: How romantic.

SANDI: Yeah. The Mark Knopfler song,  _ Prairie Wedding _ , starts out, “we only knew each other by letter,” which was very Waverly and Nicole but not really. And that whole song is just, from the second he sees her he’s completely dazzled.

DELAYNE: Calls her an angel, yeah.

SANDI: He sees her and he thinks, “well this is how Adam must have felt the first time he saw Eve.” And the following verses are all about how blown away he is by her beauty, and she touches him and he freezes and all this stuff. And then once they have the wedding the last verse, which I’m sure is supposed to take place after a while, he’s standing there holding her in the sunset and he still can’t believe he’s that lucky and he’s asking her, “do you really love me Mary? Do you really love me?” So, and that made me think of how many different permutations of the whole mail order bride trope there could be, so I started doing research. And the monster grew from there. It might have got a little out of my hands at some point but yeah.

LARAGH: It happens to the best of us. This Nicole and Waverly are quite different from the Nicole and Waverly we know from the show, but they’re so very much themselves it’s a case of a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, to quote Waverly and Nicole’s old friend Willy Shakes. So how hard was it to adapt them to this whole new life, and world, and purpose, and way of being in this land that’s strange to all of us but still maintaining everything we know and love about their relationship?

SANDI: Hmmm. Well, I suppose the simple thing to say would be that I stripped them down to their correct essences and did experiments on them in another time period. But that’s basically bullshit, there was nothing simple about it. First what I did is I watched season one over way too many times and took notes. Gestures, speech patterns, defining characteristics, quirks, canon history that influenced who they were, contemporary factors that influenced who they were. That way I could strip away anything that would not be there in the other time period. And then I took that core character that they had without all the trappings of the contemporary time and influenced it with the mores of the 1800s and the aggregate of what they’d experienced in that time period to form a new personality that was still the core of Waverly and Nicole inside, still the same girls that we love. Because one of my pet peeves is when somebody writes a period piece and people act like they’re from modern times. 

DARKWICCAN: Yes, to quote another western Wayhaught story, “it ain’t proper.”

DELAYNE: [laughs]

SANDI: [inaudible quote] 

DARKWICCAN: So once we get to the big reveals, which I commented in the previous segment about how I really enjoyed the fact that you’ll have one reveal but not another. You would think one would lead immediately to the other but they don’t necessarily and I love the fact that you opted to have each individual revelation happen at a distance to each other. So these things happen, the initial secret is revealed outside of the control of the secret keeper, and instead of it being this, “you lied to me, you lied, you lied,” it was, “well, this worked out better for me in the long run.” [laughs] So it was really no big deal. And it’s sort of similar with the second reveal in that it starts off very fraught, but ends up being a blip ultimately. At least, me as a reader, that’s how it came across to me. Where I think we’d all been sitting in our seats, bracing, holding our arm rests, waiting for this moment and it just was like, “well, okay.” So why did you opt to go this route instead of exploring more potentially angst ridden dramatic options. 

SANDI: First of all I always try to not go for what somebody’s expecting. I always try to go the other way and to me there’s nothing more boring in a story than you always know what’s going to happen next. And we’ve all read them, but I think as far as the angst and drama not being there go, it’s just a function of my age. By the time you hit 55 you are so over drama, you don’t have the time for it, just “eh pass,” you know? But if you look at all the reason with the, there goes my language centre, the reveals yeah that’s what we’re talking about. For instance with the gender reveal, now coming up to this Waverly’s been falling in love with Cole but she won’t let herself fall in love with Cole because she’s confused because she’s never been attracted to a man before and she can’t get her head around that. So she can’t let go fully, she digs her heels in and goes, “how can I be in love with Cole, he’s a man, this is not going to work, I don’t understand it.” And then when she finally sees Cole, when she sees Cole topless and thinks, “oh my god, Cole’s a woman.” It’s not “[high piercing shriek] Cole’s a woman.” It’s “[interested tone] oh, Cole’s a woman, well that explains the attraction, okay.” And she’s just spent so much time fighting tooth and nail against death I guess, to keep Cole with her that she finds how much she doesn’t want to lose her, and can no longer deny to herself that she’s madly in love with this woman. So the revelation that she’s a woman is less, “oh my god, you’re a woman,” to “oh, this makes sense, okay.” Suddenly understands the attraction she’s had the whole time and it’s more of a relief than shock, really. So it’s just like, “oh, okay.” Plus she’s got all that time waiting until Cole tells her the truth to think about it as well. But I think she’s really had it reinforced how much in love with this person she is by all she’s done to keep him alive, or her alive, as the case may be. And as far as the ultimate reveal, the Nikki and Michelle reveal, anybody who has ever lost someone close to someone will tell you that if by some miracle that person was suddenly restored to life nothing else would matter. The only thing that would matter was that you had them back. You’re not going to have any other reaction than, “oh my god, you’re here, oh my god, I can’t believe it, thank you.” So it’s hard to see how that reveal could actually go any other way. Like, I couldn’t imagine Waverly going, “you’re alive? I’m pissed.” That just wouldn’t make sense. 

DARKWICCAN: Well, I mean, Waverly has proven to be [pause] ornery in the past. But no, you’re absolutely right, you’re absolutely right. 

SANDI: She’s gonna get back at her later for that. You know she’s going to get back at her for shooting at her head. 

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Oh totally.

SANDI: She has got to get back, definitely 

DELAYNE: Speaking of Waverly-

DARKWICCAN: Yes.

DELAYNE: -in the first segment I was going off a little bit about this amazing reveal that you did in that Waverly being the Earp, because you know in canon the focus is on how she’s not an Earp. So what was it that led you to this genius decision.

SANDI: Genius decision, yeah okay. Genius decision, flatter me, whatever. It’s silly, but anyway. You’re especially not going to think that when you hear the real answer. When you hear the real answer you’re not going to think that anymore. There’s something behind it but to tell you the truth Waverly’s name is Earp because her name is Waverly Earp. It just made the most sense. And as Nicole said she is the Earpiest Earp. But that’s basically how she gets to be the Earp in the story, because that was her name. You know if we’d taken it and-- see the thing is I am not a canon kind of girl. I look back, even in the Buffy times, I’ve never written a canon fic in my life. I’m all about the AU. And it’s one thing when you use somebody else’s characters, but using their story structure, narrative and all that is just too much of a constraint for me. As they say, I have a very temperamental muse and she’s got to be able to follow her impulses or she shuts down. Which is why it took me five years to write  _ A Woman In Uniform _ back on the Kitten Board. But it just made the most sense to structure it that way, because if I’d made their dick of a father Ward Earp instead of the preacher, then that would have been too close to canon for me. I wanted to write my own story, I just never dreamed it would end up being this beast that took on a life of it’s own and won’t stop. But there’s really no deep reason why she’s the Earp, it just kind of worked out that way.

DELAYNE: Well, it worked well.

SANDI: Sorry you’re disappointed it wasn’t genius. Thank you.

DELAYNE: It’s still genius. Whether it was a very specific decision or not.

SANDI: Uh huh.

DELAYNE: So there. You’re still a genius, just accept it.

SANDI: Yeah, yeah. That’s one of my problems.

DARKWICCAN: Just go with it. Well Sandi this has been so much fun chatting with you today and talking about this wonderful story  _ The Bride Came DOA _ . I gotta say, great title. Love the title. So got my attention as soon as it popped up on AO3. I was like, “ooh, what is this?” And I didn’t regret clicking through at all. So excellent work.

SANDI: Kind of a little play on  _ The Bride Came COD _ . 

DELAYNE: [laughs]

DARKWICCAN: Yes, yes. But uh, before we let you go today we do have one final question to ask. Laragh have you reconnected? 

LARAGH: I have reconnected.

DARKWICCAN: Please, please, if you would ask our final question.

LARAGH: Sandi, you’re stranded on a desert island and you can only have one fanfic to read. What is it? 

SANDI: Mmm, I knew this question was coming because you ask everybody this.

DARKWICCAN: Yes.

SANDY: And this was the hardest thing to figure out because when I’m writing a fic I don’t read anything within that fandom. So I had to go back over the whole archive and find the ones that I liked from before, and then re-read them to re-identify with them so I can figure out which one. And I worked it down to three. And I worked it down to two. And then to tell you the truth I flipped a coin.

DARKWICCAN: And the winner of the coin toss is?

SANDI: The winner of the coin toss is  _ Stop Making Eyes At Me (But I Don’t Really Want You To) _ by TheGaySmurf.

DARKWICCAN: Awesome, I am more than happy to provide a link to that story in the show notes of this episode. Thank you again so much for joining us, I am looking forward to seeing how this delightful story of yours wraps up.

SANDI: So am I, I have no idea. Well, not the next chapter anyway.

DARKWICCAN: But wait a minute, you said you-- liar.

SANDI: I know the major plot points, I don’t know the next chapter. Oddly enough, what happened in the last chapter with Walt, I hadn’t planned. The story took over and it kind of happened itself.

DARKWICCAN: Well, I look forward to seeing what the story tells you is going to happen in the end.

SANDI: Okay fair.

MUSIC: Don’t Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Maddigan

DARKWICCAN: And that'S all for this episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Thanks for joining us.

Tremendous thanks to sometimesWaverlydresseslikeahooker for chatting with us about their work!

Thanks also to our announcer Byron Tidwell for our intro 

Background music for the episode was:

A Proper Story by Darren Korb

Les aiguilles tremblaient entre chaque seconde by November Polaroid

Humoresque by Antonin Dvorak

and the outro music is Don't Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Madigan

If you have questions or comments for the podcast you can find us on Twitter at E-F-A underscore Podcast and on Facebook at E-F-A Podcast. 

And you can find all of our episodes, old and new, at our website E-F-A Podcast dot com.

And if you're listening on iTunes, please take a moment to rate and review our show.

Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you'll join us again next time for another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Until then, READ MORE FIC!

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Episodes post Mondays at 8am PST
> 
> Visit our Website http://efapodcast.com/ for all episodes old and new!
> 
> Follow us on Twitter: @efa_podcast
> 
> And on Facebook: facebook.com/EFAPodcast


	14. All a Twitter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This week DW, Delayne and Laragh are glued to their smartphones as they chat with author l_grace_b about their Twitter fics!

[Click HERE to Listen!](http://efapodcast.com/all-a-twitter)

Read the Tweets!

[365 days](https://twitter.com/TeachEarp_/status/1178113558556504064)

[Routine and Ritual](https://twitter.com/TeachEarp_/status/1194462271121965056)

[The Tattoo](https://twitter.com/TeachEarp_/status/1108182934928805890)

[Heights](https://twitter.com/TeachEarp_/status/1026529872787562496)

[Birthday](https://twitter.com/TeachEarp_/status/1081711801790717952)

Episode Artwork by Chantal Zeegers

Leah's Desert Island Fic Selection is: ['Our Family of Choice' by alesford](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1056551)

Transcript by ACalmHope28

EFA EP 414 - All A Twitter

[ph] - Indicates preceding word has been spelled phonetically

[sic] - Indicates preceding word has been transcribed verbatim.

  
  


DARKWICCAN : Thanks, Announcer Guy, and welcome, everybody to another episode of The Earp Fiction Addiction, the podcast dedicated entirely to “Wynonna Earp” fanfiction. I am your host, DarkWiccan, and with me for yet another hostful opening, are my wonderful co-hosts, the amazing Idahoan…

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Hi, it’s Delayne!

DARKWICCAN : And all the way from the land of Eire.

LARAGH : [Laughs] Hi, it’s Laragh.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] You guys!

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Two episodes in a row! The three of us! 

LARAGH : Two episodes!

DARKWICCAN : Who would’ve thunk?

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

LARAGH : Amahzing [ph]

DARKWICCAN : It is amahzing [ph]. True? Yaaas [ph].

LARAGH : Yaaas.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yaaas.

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Oh, don’t you love references to inside yokes [ph]?

DARKWICCAN & LARAGH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : I’m sorry, Delayne, that’s not even a joke that you’re in on.

DELAYNE : Yeah [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : That’s just a joke between Laragh and I.

DELAYNE : I’m over here NOT giggling.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah [laughs]. Like, “What are you guys talking about?”

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Oh, you know, uh, just stumbling across videos of folks singing, um, funny… Singing songs in a funny way and me sharing it with Laragh and then us having inside jokes. Sorry, Delayne, you’re on the outside of this one.

DARKWICCAN & LARAGH : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : I don’t mind. That… That’s ok. 

DARKWICCAN : I’ll send you a link later and you’ll… you’ll get it.

DELAYNE & DARKWICCAN : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : You’ll get the joke. 

DELAYNE : Not necessarily [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : Well, then, you’ll get the reference, let me put it that way. You’ll get the reference.

DELAYNE : That was a slam on me, not on anyone else. It’s fine. [Laughs].

DARKWICCAN : Ok [laughs].

[CONTENT CENSORED. SEE EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT]

DARKWICCAN : I don’t know about you guys, but being, uh, stuck inside for such a long period of time, um, I tend to spend a lot of time on the social medias, how ‘bout you?

DELAYNE : More than… Actually, less… Less lately! [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Good! That’s good! That’s good. 

LARAGH : Yeah, I was off social media for a couple of months, but now I’m back!

DARKWICCAN : With a vengeance. 

LARAGH : With a vengeance. With a…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

LARAGH : I was gonna say, “with a period,” but no, that doesn’t work. That… that…

DELAYNE & DARKWICCAN : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : [Movie Trailer Voice] Laragh’s back and she’s taking screen names. 

DARKWICCAN & LARAGH : [Laugh]

LARAGH : Oh my god. They wouldn’t let me do it on… on… on this thing that we’re recording on. They wouldn't let me put the period in. I was really upset about it. 

DARKWICCAN : Oh, that’s right, your name… That’s right. Uh, when [laughs]... That was so funny. Ok, so this thing happened… I don’t… Yeah… This thing where, basically, we… The interface that we use to record, before you come into the virtual studio, you have to fill in your name into a form and then when you’re… when you come in the Studio, your name that you filled in populates with your recording track. Well, [laughs] last week, Laragh came in and it totally looked like she put a period at the end of her name, like, “Laragh. Period.”

LARAGH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : And I was like, “Wow, you are very, you know, like…”

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : “You have made a statement there, my friend.” And she was like, “What?” [Laughs]

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : And it turned out that it wasn’t a period, it was a bit of schmutz on my screen that looked like a period… 

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : right at the end of her name. It was… oh, it was a moment. Inside jokes! 

LARAGH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : [Sings] Inside jokes! Ba-dum-bump! Ok, anyway!

DELAYNE & DARKWICCAN : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : So, we’ve either been spending more or less time on social media depending on how your… your, uh, Quarantine is going. Um, you know, here’s something I gotta say: Uh, there are a lot of, um, marches and protests and all sorts of major, major things going on and I haven’t been able to take part in them, uh, in person. So, I’m taking part in them virtually. Um, it’s one of those things where, uh, the Pandemic’s still happening, you guys.

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : So, I’m going to put my money where my mouth is and donate to as many, uh, Black owned and Black supporting, and Black trans supporting causes as I… as I… as I can. Uh, as well as uplifting Black voices and uplifting Queer… uh, Queer, uh, Black, indigionous, people of color voices through my social media where I have a far greater outreach that I ever would in a crowd [laughs]. So, um, so… so that… that’s what I’m doing, but, Laragh, you were actually at a protest this morning, which, kudos to you, my friend.

LARAGH : Yes. And I would encourage people who can go safely, to go safely. Um, but if you can’t, then by all means, do the suggestions that DW has… has just recommended. And everyone can help in some way even if it’s not money. If it’s donating your time or… or anything. Your art. Um, you know there are so many ways, I think, to help right now. 

DARKWICCAN : Uh, absolutely. There’s a wonderful social media meme, uh, going around. It’s still, I think, being circulated that basically says something to the effect of, um, everyone is doing what they can in their own way. Uh, just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not being done. Um, and, you know, let’s, kind of, hold a place of grace for… for everyone during this incredibly fraught and difficult time. Uh, so I… I really appreciate that. I feel that a lot. Uh, and, you know, as long as you’re doing something in your own way, uh, you know, that’s a positive. That… that is definitely a positive. 

DELAYNE : I guess I should, uh, clarify my… my social media use. I might… I am still on it. Of course I still scroll it. Um, I have been saying less and retweeting the protests. The… the… I’ve been retweeting, uh, Black voices and the protests and things… what’s the things with signatures?

DARKWICCAN : Petitions? You’ve been signing petitions?

DELAYNE : Petitions! Thank you. So, I’ve been retweeting Black voices, and the protests, and petitions and, um, fundraising. So, I have been social media-ing [ph] less, but I have been on to retweet as well. 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. Yeah. And… and that’s great. That’s good. And I think all of us have also been taking the time to quietly educate ourselves, um, and, uh, learn more about the situation at hand. Um, which, again, is another huge thing that especially, you know, um, us white folk can do, uh, in this time - To educate themselves and then to speak up in defense of, uh, those are things... But don’t talk over. Do not talk over [laughs] . And that’s something that I think we, as Queer people, understand. Um, you know, being talked over, uh, by… by, you know, a well-meaning, um, straight person [laughs]. So, it’s…

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Yes.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. Yeah. So, it’s, like, just taking that understanding and applying it to don’t talk over, you know, people of color. Uplift their voices. Don’t talk over them. But another thing that we, uh, turn to social media for is also, not just in the information and not just to continue protesting and… and lifting up voices, but, also, we look to social media, kind of, occasionally, for a break [laughs]. Just a moment of peace. A moment of, um, joy, right? [Laughs]

DELAYNE : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : Uh, so that’s what we’re talking about here today. We’re talking about Twitter fics. And specifically the work of ao3 author, l_grace_b, who on Twitter is known as @TeachEarp_. So that’s “teach” like “teacher”. TeachEarp_. Uh, she has put up, uh, a handful of little, brief, Twit-fics [ph]. I almost said, “twit-lits.”

ALL : [Laugh]

LARAGH : Twit-lits.

DELAYNE : I like that. Twit-lits.

DARKWICCAN : Twit-lits. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : It’s Twitter literature. Twit-lit. Um…

DELAYNE : Ooo [ph]. Beautiful.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. Hashtag Twit-lit. Twit-lit life.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Um, so, uh, so, yeah. She put up a handful of about, uh, four or five? Five?

LARAGH : Five.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, uh, little Twit-lits and, uh, [laughs] the thing is, they’re not recent. They’re… they’re from over the past year, essentially, uh, and, um, but they’re all really lovely little slices o’ life that she’s captured. Uh, pretty much all Nicole Haught point of view. And all generally introspective. Um, but they’re really lovely little pieces and that’s what we’re talking about today. [Silence] So let’s chat about the first one [clears throat].

DELAYNE & LARAGH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Uh, which is not necessarily the first one in the timeline as far as the one that she’s, you know, order that had been written in. And this one is just the first one that is on my screen at the time.

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Uh, and I call it “365 Days” because that’s in the first sentence of the first tweet, uh, which is, “It’s been 365 days.” Of course we’ll provide links to all of these tw… little Twit-lit, ficlet thingies, um, on our show notes for this episode, so you can click through as well. Um, but, uh, this one is, uh… Again, they’re all Nicole Haught point of view, um, and this one is Nicole thinking about the fact that it’s been three hundred and sixty five days since she last saw Waverly. 

DELAYNE : And, uh, this was published at the end of September, um…

DARKWICCAN : 2019

DELAYNE : Isn’t that when… uh, a year after Season 3 had ended?

DARKWICCAN : Yes, it was a year to the day or so of the Season 3 finale. 

DELAYNE : Yeah. So, definitely in the feels of the show [laughs]. 

DARKWICCAN : Laragh, do you have any thoughts on this one?

LARAGH : Um, yeah. Oh my god. Um, I think this, like most of… most of the, what are we calling them? Twit-lits?

DARKWICCAN : Yeah.

LARAGH : Um, [laughs] it’s heartbreaking, however, it is also very hopeful at the end and…

DARKWICCAN : Yes. 

DELAYNE : Yes.

LARAGH : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

LARAGH : You guys are like twins.

DELAYNE : This one’s very, very glimmer of… of hope.

LARAGH : Yeah, yeah, it pulls you back.

DELAYNE : Which everyone…

DARKWICCAN : Mmmhmm [ph]. Yeah, you kinda get all sad panda and then at the end you’re like, “[gasps] Bamboo?!” So, you know, it’s…

DELAYNE & LARAGH : [Laughs]

LARAGH : Oh my god.

DELAYNE : [Laughing] I’ve never heard… oh my gosh.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

LARAGH : Yeah, exactly.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, uh, another thing to note really quickly is that each of these fics is only, like, uh, six or seven tweets long. 

DELAYNE : Right.

DARKWICCAN : So, these are very brief. It’s not like where we’d spoken about, uh, you know, social media AUs, uh, last… I believe it was last season? Uh, where we had these stories that were hundreds and hundreds of tweets long. Each of these Twit-lits is only six or seven tweets. So, um, it’s very, very quick to… to read through these. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : But, despite their brevity, they are very deep.

DELAYNE : Yes. Um, and in a way, I was going to throw these in and… and do a word count, but I never got to that, um [laughs], so I don’t know how close it fits to a drabble, which, um, officially, those are exactly a hundred words, but these are definitely very drabble-like. 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Um, yeah, I don’t know. I, uh, I certainly wasn’t gonna sit down and count…

DELAYNE & LARAGH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : The words. 

DELAYNE : Well, how many… how many characters are in a tweet?

DARKWICCAN : Two hundred and forty, but she doesn’t use the full 240 for each…

DELAYNE : Well, let’s figure out the maximum…

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : Out of six… [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : Ok, let me get the calculator now. Break out the calculator.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : [Groans] Alright, making me do math. 

LARAGH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Alright, 240 times six is…

DELAYNE : How many characters are in a word?

DARKWICCAN : 1,440 words. Characters! Characters. 1,440 characters. But the thing is, a word…

LARAGH : Ok, so the first one has fifty words.

DARKWICCAN : The first one has fifty words. Ok, so… 

LARAGH : As in, the first tweet on its own.

DARKWICCAN : Ok, so there’s, like… we definitely… we’re exceeding the drabble. 

DELAYNE : Ok.

DARKWICCAN & LARAGH : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : But, still, nice and short and, yet, still profound. 

DARKWICCAN : Yes, exactly. So, anyway, the first part, uh, yeah, “365 Days”, uh, then she wrote one after that that I call, “Routine and Ritual,” um, again, because in the first sentence [laughs] we have the phrase, “Routine and ritual.” Um…

DELAYNE & LARAGH : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : That’s exactly what I wrote down.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. And that one…

DELAYNE : But then I wrote, “Disrupted” for that one.

DARKWICCAN : Uh, right, yes. Um, “Disrupted Routine” also would be a good title for this one, um…

DELAYNE : No, it’s “Routine and Ritual Comma [sic] Disrupted” because it talks about the routine and the ritual and then compares it to the disruption that it is with Waverly gone. 

DARKWICCAN : Right. Uh, and I think that, uh, um, TeachEarp here does an excellent job of really tackling the fact that, uh, Nicole is someone who lives by, uh, a degree of order, right? I mean, true, her house was a little messy before Bunny Loblaw came over, she had to hide a bra in the bookcase, but…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Really, her house didn’t need that much of a tidy up, so [laughs]...

DELAYNE : No.

DARKWICCAN : You know. Um, she’s definitely someone who is… who you get the impression is quite orderly. Uh, and… and this little Twit-lit dives into, um… dives into that and then what happens when that order is, uh, disrupted. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : The next, uh, Twit-lit that I have up on my screen…

DARKWICCAN & DELAYNE : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : I call, “The Tattoo.” [Laughs]

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : And I’ve been talking about these too much, so why don’t you take it?

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Um, yeah, so this is just… just a smidge of WyNaught Bro-T.P. [ph] here, I guess.

DARKWICCAN : Mmmhmm.

DELAYNE : Well, um, “smidge” as in, you know, it’s not a full fic, so it’s not really, like, fully fleshed out, um, but they go to the least shady tattoo parlor in Purgatory [laughs] and, uh… and the… the phoenix tattoo happens. Uh, not, of course… [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] Not… 

DELAYNE : On anyone’s but [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Not where Wynonna suggested it might happen.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Uh, and, um, and then Wynonna calls Nicole a walking bumper sticker.

LARAGH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yes.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

LARAGH : Right.

DARKWICCAN : A nice, little…

LARAGH : No, I was just gonna say it’s, um, you know, all of these… all of these Twit-lits are, uh, you know, set in the… in the… I can’t say “set in the setting.” They’re set in the arena of, um, Waverly being lost in the Garden.

DARKWICCAN : Mmmhmmm. Mmmhmm.

LARAGH : Or we… we assume that to be the case. And this… this… this one is just a nice little bit of levity, even with all of that horrible stuff in the background. It’s just a little bit of levity, uh, which I thought was really cool.

DARKWICCAN : Yes, definitely. Yeah.

DELAYNE : [Laughs] And then, uh, in the context of, you know, the fight for Wynonna when we were worried about our show coming back at all, um, that definitely, uh… TeachEarp wrote one of the tweets like, “Looking at this from that lens it’s… [groans] Sorry about that, guys.”

ALL : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : That’s not a direct quote, but that’s the gist [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : I… I really enjoy how each of these little stories, uh, just seem to occur to TeachEarp, like, she was just like, “Oh, I got an idea.”

DARKWICCAN & DELAYNE : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : “It’s not long enough for an actual fic fic, so I’m just gonna write this sucker out and post it to Twitter.” [Laughs]

DELAYNE : And… and it works well ‘cause, I mean, it’s… it’s right there, available for everyone. 

DARKWICCAN : Oh yeah.

DELAYNE : You know, quick and easy access.

DARKWICCAN : Oh.

DELAYNE : And not super long, so also easy to read.

DARKWICCAN : Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And they’re, again, they’re… they’re so deep. It’s really amazing to me how deep, uh, you know, she’s able to get with just these little missives kind of sent off into space.

LARAGH : Yeah, it’s super impressive.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs] Short and sweet.

DARKWICCAN : Yes. 

LARAGH : Or strong.

DARKWICCAN : Or short and… short and strong, yeah. Yeah.

DELAYNE : That’s nice. Keeping the alliteration.

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Uh, let’s see. Ok, the next, uh, one I’ve got up is actually the first one that she wrote and I call it “Fear of Heights.” Uh, this was written in, uh, early August 2018, so we were only a couple of episodes into, uh, “Wynonna Earp” Season Three at that point. Um, and it is a sort of, uh, thought, um… Not “thought puzzle.” That’s not…

DELAYNE : It’s like a Nicole backstory.

DARKWICCAN : It’s a bit of… yeah. It’s a little bit of a Nicole backstory. Uh, yeah, it’s a… it’s a little bit of a… It gives us a, um, a look into how and why Nicole started climbing... rocks? 

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Let me rephrase that! Started rock climbing. 

ALL : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : Yeah, see, in my notes I wrote, uh, “Scared of heights.” So that was… that’s kind of a surprising take on Nicole’s backstory. Like, ‘cause, well, we know she climbs. Well, in this… in TeachEarp’s mind that Nicole started climbing and taking climbing lessons to get over that fear of heights.

DARKWICCAN : Right.

DELAYNE : So…

DARKWICCAN : Yes.

LARAGH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Which I think…

DELAYNE : Just to reiterate exactly everything you just said.

LARAGH : [Laughs] Yeah. No, it is. It’s just… I mean, there’s only so much one can say about these fics because, again, they’re… they’re short, but, um, you know, I think this is a really good, little insight into Nicole and I think, as Delayne said, there’s a really interesting take on why Nicole came to be a rock climber, you know? That it wasn’t just, “Oh, she enjoys this hobby,” it actually meant something to her. It had meaning for her. And, um, you know, that’s why she does it, not just for the love of it, but because, um, it’s important to her, as well.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, exactly. Um, I love… It’s such a, um, wonderful thing, uh, that, you know, authors and actors, um, you know, writers and actors both do where it’s like, “Ok, I’m giving my… I am giving this character a trait. A hobby. They enjoy curling. [Laughs] Ok, why do they enjoy curling?” It’s not just like a “Oh, randomly I decided that they play this sport.” It’s that they actually dig into the whys and wherefores. What brought them to this… this hobby of theirs, you know? Um, I feel like I’m just rattling on like an idiot. But, uh...

DELAYNE & LARAGH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : But… but you’re picking up what I’m putting down, yeah? [Laughs]

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Ok, cool. 

DELAYNE : Yes. Well, there’s one more of the, uh, Twit-lit. And, um, this was actually the second one, uh, chronologically. And, uh, this one’s a Birthday… a solo-Birthday climbing trip. Well, I guess “solo” ‘cause, again, occurs after the season and is set after what happens in the season, um, so Nicole really wanted to take Waverly to the spot that she had found just before she had met Waverly, um, and she goes and climbs for her Birthday and she watches as the sun goes down and the stars come out and she makes a wish upon a star.

DARKWICCAN : Aww.

ALL : [Laugh]

LARAGH : Right?!

DARKWICCAN : [Sings] “When you wish upon a star…”

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Sorry, I was doing my best Jiminy Cricket impression just now, um… 

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : That was actually not my best Jiminy Cricket impression, but it was an impression.

ALL : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : You’re best for the moment.

DARKWICCAN : Yes. That’ll work. That’ll work.

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : But, yeah, no, again, it’s very… it’s… it’s bittersweet. It’s a very bittersweet, little Twit-lit. Which I guess all of them kind of are? Bittersweet?

DELAYNE : Yeah. 

LARAGH : Yeah. Yeah. Bittersweet is a good word, actually. But bittersweet, like, in a very visceral way as if, like, you’ve been punched in the stomach.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : [Makes sounds of discomfort] Yeah. 

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : I don’t know what to say to that. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

LARAGH : You know what I mean, though? It… it… it’s like a… a… a gut punch sometimes because…

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, no, I definitely… I definitely get that, yeah. I definitely do. For sure. For sure. Yes. [Laughs]

DELAYNE : It’s the hurt… it’s the hurt-so-good idea, right?

DARKWICCAN : Yes, exactly. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : It hurts so good. Uh, well, why don’t we, uh, quit a-rambling [ph] on here about these three… five delightful stories.

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Uh, and I know, Laragh, we have to say adios to you, uh, unfortunately. But, Delayne, you’re gonna join me with the, uh… the next segment and chatting with our author, correct?

DELAYNE : Yes! Yes, I will be there.

[CONTENT CENSORED. PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT

MUSIC : Typewriter by Leroy Anderson

  
  


DARKWICCAN : And welcome back, everybody, to The Earp Fiction Addiction - The podcast dedicated entirely to “Wynonna Earp'' fanfiction. I remain your host, DarkWiccan, and with me is my wonderful co-host…

DELAYNE : Hi, it’s Delayne.

DARKWICCAN : And we’re so excited to have with us the author of the delightful, little Twitter fics we were discussing in the previous segment, who will… who has promised us she is going to keep all of her answers to two hundred and forty characters or less…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Please welcome to the show, Leah!

LEAH : Hello, friends. I remember making no such promises!

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Well, the funny thing is, we actually asked you to run off on tangents, so…

LEAH : Yeah, exactly. So, I’m getting mixed signals here, really, and I would appreciate you letting me know beforehand. Before we started this.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Ok, yeah, definitely. Uh, so, yeah, we’re lifting the 240 character uh, um, rule. You can absolutely… 

LEAH : Great.

DARKWICCAN : Just, run on to your heart’s content.

DELAYNE : Or, you know what, you can just thread it all together.

LEAH : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : That’s right, we want threads of answers.

LEAH : Great.

DARKWICCAN & DELAYNE : [Laugh]

LEAH : Yeah. [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : So, Leah, this is your [laughs] first time on the…

LEAH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : Podcast, but you’ve been on a panel for EFA in the past at EhCon last year.

LEAH : That is correct. Uh…

DARKWICCAN : That was a ton of fun.

LEAH : It was a ton of fun. I remember, like… The big thing I remember from that panel is when we were all coming out on stage and, like, we couldn’t figure out who was gonna sit in which chair and for some reason I was on, like, the right of you, which should not have been the case. You should have been on, like, the far right of everybody and so I ended up sitting in, like, the host seat, which is very weird [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, that was really funny because I fully intended to sit there, but when I took a step back to sit down, you went flomp [ph]. Ok. Yes and… We will go with it.

LEAH : Yes and. Yes and. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

LEAH : Exactly.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

LEAH : Shaking it up a little bit. 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, yeah… 

LEAH : Where’s the host…

DARKWICCAN : Keeping everybody on their toes. Or, really, on the edge of their seats. Hey-o!

LEAH : Hey-o!

DARKWICCAN : Ok. 

ALL : [Laugh]

LEAH : No, that was a lot of fun and I enjoyed being a part of it.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, I loved having you. Um, and another thing about you is that you’re a Pacific Northwest Earper.

LEAH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : Like myself.

LEAH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : And like my co-host.

DELAYNE : Yay!

LEAH : Woo!

DELAYNE : I’m actually wearing my shirt right now.

DARKWICCAN & DELAYNE : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : You’re… you’re theming it up, Delayne.

LEAH : I’m gonna… I’m gonna…

DELAYNE : Mere coincidence. I just… I put it on. It was there. I put it on after I took off my work shirt, so…

LEAH : You knew.

DELAYNE : It was not purposeful. But I am loving it [laughs].

LEAH : You knew. You totally knew.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : I mean, yes, I knew that we were going to be talking to you [laughs], just didn’t think about the whole, “Hey, we’re all in Washington right now!”

LEAH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah [laughs].

LEAH : We are all in Washington right now. That’s true.

DARKWICCAN : This is true. Because even the last time we had a Pacific Northwest Earper author on, uh, Haughtbreaker, um, they were here in Washington, and I was here in Washington, but, Delayne, you were in California at the time, so this is the first time that we have three Pacific Northwest Earpers on the show at once.

LEAH : Whoop whoop [ph]!

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

LEAH : I don’t… I don’t know what that gets us. What does that get us? Like…

DARKWICCAN : I’m not sure…

LEAH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Perhaps this is the key to ending COVID. 

DARKWICCAN & DELAYNE : [Laugh]

LEAH : Oh my god, I hope so. So, [laughs] when you first reached out to, like, ask if I wanted to be on, it was, like, day two of Quarantine for me, um, and it seemed so far away - the date that you gave me.

DARKWICCAN & DELAYNE : [Laugh]

LEAH : And I was thinking, like, you know, things will be kind of back to normal. I might be back to work, but things might be a little bit different, but, like, normal is gonna happen, and here we are, on that date and everything is still not great [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : No. Things are… things are rough.

LEAH : Things are a bit rough [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : But, you know what? We are definitely experiencing history…

LEAH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : And… and that as a teacher, that’s gotta be both profound, invigorating, and terrifying. 

LEAH : Yeah, uh, it’s… it really feels, especially now, um, though it’s been in the back of my mind, throughout starting to become a teacher, um, you know, it feels like a massive call to action, not only, um, to do my own work, but also to make sure I’m gathering, like, my colleagues around me to do the work and so that we’re cultivating this new, um… new history for our kids. And I, specifically, teach a grade where we look at U.S. history and, like, the founding of this country and, so, you know, to look at what’s happening now and then to… and to not… to continue to, like, tell that narrative that, like, I’m sure we all got growing up, um…

DARKWICCAN : Mmmhmm.

LEAH : Like, the desire to totally just rip that apart and, you know, bring these new narratives, and untold narratives in, um, it feels important. And it’s scary and it’s gonna be uncomfortable, but, it… the importance of that is bigger than a moment of discomfort, so… 

DELAYNE : It’s necessary.

LEAH : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : Oh, absolutely. I mean, uh, Leah, did you grow up here in the Pacific Northwest?

LEAH : I did. Born and raised. Um, I can’t imagine living anywhere else ‘cause it is just so gorgeous here. Um, at least on the West side. I mean, not that the East side isn’t beautiful, but, like, I mean specifically… 

DELAYNE : Hey!

DARKWICCAN : Oh! Throwing some shade! Throwing some shade!

LEAH : Ahh! Oh no! 

ALL : [Laugh]

LEAH : Um, but I love the West side, um, so, but yes. Short answer: Yes. I did grow up in the Pacific Northwest. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, I, uh, [laughs] I grew up, um, all over the United States. I spent a good deal of my, uh, elementary… I’d say I spent half of my elementary school years in the South and the other half of my elementary school years in the North. And even just going from the South to the North… Huge differences in what we were learning, uh, in… in school. And, like, for example, uh, setting aside, you know, the learning about U.S. history and things like that, in the South, every day, we stood and did the Pledge of Allegiance. Every day without fail. 

LEAH : Yeah. 

DARKWICCAN : When I… when I moved to Upstate New York, um, the first day of school, the bell rang, I stood up with my hand on my heart, everyone looked at me like I was insane and I sat back down. And we never said the Pledge. And then when [laughs]... And I was like, “That was interesting.” And then, uh, when moving to California for, um… to the West Coast, for middle school, uh, not only did we not… We just didn’t do the Pledge, uh, but, I mean, there were other things that… that, uh… that I had gotten used to that - on the East Coast - that didn’t carry over to the West Coast, so it’s just, depending on where you were in the United States, you… depended… And also, socio-economically where you were, determined what you were learning in school. And that’s wild and, uh, wrong.

LEAH : Mmmhmm. [Sings] Because schools are funded by property taxes which is another form of segregation. [Stops singing] Anyways.

DARKWICCAN : Yup. Yup.

LEAH : This is a podcast about fanfic! [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : That’s a whole other show!

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Let’s talk about fanfic. 

LEAH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Seg… That’s a segway! Ok.

DELAYNE & LEAH : [Laugh]

LEAH : Anyways!

DARKWICCAN : So… so… so, Leah, you, um, took to your keyboard, uh, in August of 2018.

LEAH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : And started putting out, um - and, um, very much spaced apart - but started putting out these little missives of Twit-fics. Now, there are Twitter fics that are hundreds of tweets long. Yours generally averaged around six.

LEAH : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : Six tweets.

LEAH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : Which I think is perfect. Um… [laughs] 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : It’s a perfect length, uh, for a Twitter fic, um, because you don’t get lost. And, [sputters] that’s great.

LEAH : Great.

DELAYNE : Big difference between… between Twitter fic and… and those massively long Social Media AU fics.

LEAH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : Oh, fair. Fair, fair. Mmmhmm, Mmmhmm.

LEAH : Yeah, I think that’s… they’re not… that’s not what I’ve done. It’s… not… yeah, it’s not characters replying back and forth to each other, it’s like a narrative.

DARKWICCAN : Right.

[inaudible 9:01]

DELAYNE : ...little blurbs.

LEAH : Mmmhmm.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yes. Uh, so, you… you took to your keyboard shortly after the end of Season 3. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

LEAH : What? It was… 

DARKWICCAN : Well, really, the middle.

LEAH : It was the middle. 

DARKWICCAN : The middle of Season 3. 

LEAH : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, you took to your keyboard the middle of Season 3. Here we are, two years later…

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Still waiting on Season 4. Um, so, yes. 

ALL : [Laugh]

LEAH : Apparently, it exists. At least the first half of it exists. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Yes.

DELAYNE : And we’re all very excited about it.

LEAH : Yes, truly. 

DARKWICCAN : Yes.

LEAH : But, my goodness, it’s been so long. It’s been so long.

DARKWICCAN : Yes. Holy moly. 

DELAYNE : Um, I guess what I want to know, in terms of writing… posting it on Twitter as… as a medium, do you find Twit-fics have better engagement than other platforms, like, you know, traditionally posting it to ao3?

LEAH : Um, yes, would… I guess would be the short answer. Yes. Um, I think it’s easier for folks to see the whole thing, um, one, because it’s, you know, usually in a thread and you can see the whole thread. Um, but then you also don’t have to, like, click through to another, like, website, as opposed to, like, promoting something on Twitter and then it takes you to ao3. Um, it’s a lot more immediate feedback ‘cause, again, it’s really short. Um, and the feedback’s just different, too ‘cause you have the likes and you have the retweets and then you have the retweets with the comments and then you have just the comments underneath, so it’s different than… than, uh, posting stuff on ao3. Um, but, I don’t know. It depends. Depends on the…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

LEAH : The Twit-fic. I don’t know.

DARKWICCAN : Is it more like an instantaneous gratification thing, uh, on Twitter versus where on ao3 you’ll post something and then you’ll have to forcibly, like, tie your hands behind your back to not check to see how many people have…

LEAH : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : Clicked on it.

ALL : [Laugh]

LEAH : Yup. Yes. Totally.

DELAYNE : No constant refreshing?

LEAH : Totally. Yup.

DARKWICCAN & DELAYNE : [Laugh]

LEAH : Yup.

DARKWICCAN : As I… as I kinda intro’d, as I did my choppy, sloppy segway in… into this portion of our conversation, I pointed out that your stories do go as far back as August 2018 and your most recent one was from September of last year. Uh, how did the fight for Wynonna inspire your later stories once… once the fight was on, if at all?

LEAH : I think, for a couple of the later stories… ‘cause I don’t think a lot of my stories actually… I put them at, actually during the fight for Wynonna. Maybe one? Maybe two? But, like, they happen outside of it. But the ones that happen after, like we knew that we’re getting our show back, um, there’s… I notice, and I don’t know that, um, uh, I meant to do this, but there’s a lot of, um, kind of contemplation of, like, this… this extra, like, time and space that we have because production’s being pushed and, you know, a global pandemic paused production, and, so, I feel like I transferred that to, like, the characters also, in just, like, them having extra space to kind of process things and, um, and by characters, I usually mean Nicole…

DELAYNE : Nicole [laughs].

LEAH : Because that’s who I usually… By characters, I mean, Nicole. Um, and, yeah, I… One of the… my Twit-fics is… I published it a year, exactly one year after we had gotten our last episode. And it was kind of intertwined with, like, um, we had been waiting and been experiencing this extended wait. And we knew we were coming back at that point, um, but then, also, like, in world, maybe, it’s been a whole year and what have all of the feelings been like? But then, at the end, there’s, like, this little bit of hope that, oh, we’re gonna get them back. And then, you know, fade to black. End of Twitter thread kind of a thing. So, I’d say yes. It did have an effect on, uh, yeah, a couple of, like, the latter half of what I put out just because we’ve had space to think and process all of, like, the end of Season 3 and characters have had space to process the end of that. The end of the season. So, yeah.

DARKWICCAN : That makes sense. I mean, it’s kind of impossible not to have that filter through into your work somehow.

LEAH : Mmmhmm. Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : ‘Cause it’s something that we all went through together and it was so… it was such a big deal. You know, and it’s one of those things that people outside the fandom will never understand.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

LEAH : Right.

DARKWICCAN : What the fight meant for us.

LEAH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : And why it was so important that we win.

LEAH : Mmmhmm. Totally. Yeah. 

DELAYNE : Yeah, you definitely were, uh, diving deep into Nicole’s psyche, I feel. And, um, it… you really can… can, I mean, Nicole’s essence is just pouring out of these and just, like, processing. You were processing. Nicole was processing. Um, what was your process for…

DARKWICCAN & LEAH : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : getting into Nicole’s head [laughs]. I have mucked up this question. Let’s try again!

LEAH : What… what are are all of the ways we can use the word, “process”? And how can we use it as a noun? How can we use it as a verb? 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : So, yeah, what you don’t know is before you came into the room, Leah, I had made a bet with Delayne… [laughs]

LEAH : Oh, no!

DARKWICCAN : She had to use the word “process…” 

DELAYNE & LEAH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : at least six times in a single question. I think you might’ve gotten there.

DELAYNE & LEAH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : I don’t know. I’ll have to go back and count later. 

DELAYNE : You can go back and count!

DARKWICCAN : I might owe you twenty bucks. 

LEAH : Oh, god.

DARKWICCAN : Yup.

DELAYNE : I give up.

ALL : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : Right. Oh, let me try that again.

DARKWICCAN & DELAYNE : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : So, uh, you mentioned the fic that I mentally referred to as “365 Days.” Um, and you really feel the essence of Nicole kind of pouring out through that one, for sure. Um, what is your process for getting deep into Nicole’s psyche that you, I mean… that it’s so… she so clearly comes out in so few words?

LEAH : Well, thank you, first. Um…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

LEAH : That’s really nice of you. Um, I… People who know me, um, know that I really do connect to Nicole as a character. Um, she’s something… she’s somebody that I really connect with, and, um, you know, I’m… I’m not a survivor of a supernatural disaster and I don’t have, like, that particular flavor of PTSD, but, um, you know, I’ve got my stuff and, you know, the way… So, I feel like there’s a lot of similarities in the way that Nicole and I process things. Um, and I’m really happy that that has come across and people have connected with that and responded to that. Um, there’s a fic, like, a full fic, not a Twit-fic, that I posted two Summers ago, um, and it was a look at when we were learning about all of, like, Nicole’s past and her trauma and everything, and it was kind of a look into that. And for that, I really did use a lot of my personal experience with things like insomnia and anxiety and depression and all the different, kind of, parts of you that it affects and I think that really kinda solidified how I wrote Nicole, um, whether or not that is always accurate to canon, um, is, you know, that’s fine. Um, but I think there’s always part of that that I can, like, tap into, um, if there’s a particular emotion, um, yeah. I think, again, that particular fic, again, really helped me understand how to write Nicole and how she, kinda, works through the not great stuff. ‘Cause I’ve written her, like, experiencing the good things, but, like, this was… that was, like, the first time kinda sitting with her and writing her going through something that was really eating at her, and that has just kind of informed how, um, I write her. So…

DARKWICCAN : Gotcha. Uh, pivoting off of Delayne’s question, um, uh, your Twitter fics all come from Nicole’s POV. 

LEAH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : What about her point of view do you find more inspirational than other characters?

LEAH : Well, like I said, I connect to, um, Nicole and how she deals with things. Um, I think she’s someone who, um, has a lot of mental battles, and, um, obviously we don’t see that. Um, and it seems like that’s something that she’s always kind of dealt with with the various, kinda, obstacles she’s had in her life. Um, uh, I find her really… like, within the show, she’s still really interesting to me because, um, she’s still, as far as we know, um, the only, like, mortal, um, in this crew, um, and she’s kind of been thrust into this world, um, of Purgatory, um, and I’m sure she had, like, her mindset of how her life trajectory was gonna go and I don’t think any of that happened when she got into Purgatory, um, like, good stuff, bad stuff. And, I think, you know, she’s just trying to figure that out and that’s, again, her… my writing her is her trying to process things. I’m also on the bet trying to sayfigure out how many times I can say the word “process” in this podcast.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Listen, Delayne already won…

LEAH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : my twenty bucks.

LEAH : Um…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

LEAH : Yeah, so, I think that part of her, and part of just her character, is, um… is really interesting and fun. Um, I also… there’s a part of her that just wants to be and do good and she wants to make sure her love… her people are loved and taken care of. And one of the things that I really love about Nicole is that, um, she’s just herself. Once we… once we see her, she is herself. And I think there’s a… a great amount of bravery in deciding that, like, through all the things she’s been through, um, like, still choosing to be a good and kind and compassionate and generous person, um, and living in a way that you’re, like, not asking for permission from anybody to live your truth. And, um, yes we do get to see her vulnerable side a lot more, especially in the latter, um, seasons and the latter episodes, um, but, again, when we see her, when we meet her for the first time, she comes in exactly who she is, and she’s confident, but it’s not shrouded by arrogance or greed or, um, like, a need for power, like, she’s just who she is and she’s gonna be proud of herself and, um… and nothing less than that. And I think that’s really cool. That’s a cool place to explore. And maybe I’m using that to kinda work through some of my own stuff, too, um…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

LEAH : So…

DELAYNE : What writer hasn’t done that?

LEAH : Truly. 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah, so true. So true. Oh my gosh, yeah. 

LEAH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : Isn’t that the reason why so many of us started writing? Catharsis?

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

LEAH : Like, really. Yeah. 

DARKWICCAN : Mmmhmm. Yeah. Yaaas queen. Yeah. 

LEAH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

DELAYNE : Would you consider… Um, sorry, my dog is trying to distract me. 

DARKWICCAN : [Snorts]

DELAYNE : Uh, would you consider trying to do a POV from one of the other characters?

LEAH : It depends on, like, what inspires me. I’m not against it at all even though my, like, fic history suggests otherwise, but I’m not! I promise I’m not!

DARKWICCAN & DELAYNE : [Laugh]

LEAH : Um, but it’s usually those little bits of inspiration that come from, um, wanting to tell a story that’s centered around, uh, Nicole, so, um, yeah. 

DARKWICCAN : And, you know, that’s…

LEAH : I’m not against it, but…

DARKWICCAN : No, no no. No one’s suggesting you are.

DELAYNE & LEAH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Uh, I think it’s really interesting because, really, when, you know, I’ve read a lot of fic, like, not to brag…

DARKWICCAN & DELAYNE : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Uh, but… [laughs]

LEAH : Maybe… You’ve probably… You’ve probably read the most fic out of any person that I know. Truly. 

DARKWICCAN : I know. And it’s really… it’s either… Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Like, honestly. But, but, um… Most of the fics that I’ve come across, um, are… the majority truly are written from Nicole’s point of view. I’d say Nicole probably holds about 53 to 58 - that’s numbers I’m pulling out of my butt - percent…

LEAH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : of the, uh…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : “Wynonna Earp” stories out there on ao3, um, and then I think Wynonna actually comes in second, and Waverly, third, and then, you know, tertiary characters, um, randos, just kind of, you know, fourth.

DELAYNE : [inaudible 25:02]

DARKWICCAN : In a big clump. Um, so, there’s something about Nicole. 

LEAH : Yeah. 

DARKWICCAN : There is just something about her.

LEAH : Yup. Truly.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Uh, that inspires people.

LEAH : Mmmhmm. Yeah. And… Yeah, I… Again, I think part of what makes her interesting is that she’s, yeah, this mortal character that has been thrust into this world and…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

LEAH : Yeah, I… 

DARKWICCAN : Some are born great. 

LEAH : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Some achieve greatness.

DELAYNE & LEAH : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : And some have greatness thrust upon them. 

DARKWICCAN & DELAYNE : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : You just like a reason to say “thrust.”

DARKWICCAN : I’m just dropping some Shakespeare on you all, that’s all.

LEAH : Mmmhmm. Yup.

DARKWICCAN : I’m literate!

ALL : [Laugh]

LEAH : You read stuff that’s… that’s other than fanfic.

DARKWICCAN : Yes I do.

ALL : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : Um, when you do get inspired…

LEAH : Uh-huh.

DELAYNE : Especially when it ends up on Twitter, is it something that you write it all out and then split it up into the tweets, or do the tweets come as you are inspired?

LEAH : Like, do I, like, write one tweet and then, kind of, wait for the next part to come and then post that and then write another tweet?

DELAYNE : Yeah. Or do you write down the whole bits and then section it into the tweets?

LEAH : I usually write it all out and then section it into the tweets.

DELAYNE : Oh!

LEAH : Um, ‘cause I like to… Oh! That was surprising. Interesting.

ALL : [Laugh]

LEAH : Woah! Because I would wanna put out a full story or a full moment, um, and I kind of try to chunk it out based on, like, character limit to start out and then I kinda go back and, um, you know, arrange things based on what flows so I have, um… or if I have to change a word or, you know, add something or whatever, um, because one of the nice features, I guess, of Twitter, um, is that you can, like, have six or seven tweets ready to go all at once. And then the fun thing is, I just drop all of them all at once. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

LEAH : And then I get angry texts from my friends, like, thirty seconds later…

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs]

LEAH : because I just dropped this…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

LEAH : thing on them. So, that’s…

DARKWICCAN : That’s love.

DELAYNE : But you still… Do you… So, you write out the seven or so, uh, on Twitter as, uh… as it. Or do you write it separate and then move it over now? I’m curious.

LEAH : No, it’s all home grown on the Twitters.

DELAYNE : Ok.

LEAH : ‘Cause it’s usually I’m… it’s usually on my phone that I do it, um, uh, that I write ‘em out, so, yeah, it’s all on Twitter. They’re full. A hundred percent. 

DELAYNE : You can add before you hit send. That’s… 

LEAH : Exactly. 

DELAYNE : Yeah. Ok.

LEAH : Full, one hundred percent organic Twit… Twit-fics.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] Free range.

LEAH : Free range!

DELAYNE : One hundred percent organic Twit-fics.

LEAH : Yup..

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] Free range, grain fed. 

LEAH : Yup.

DARKWICCAN & DELAYNE : [Laugh]

LEAH : Cruelty free. 

DARKWICCAN : Yup. Yup.

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Um…

ALL : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : Non-GMO.

DARKWICCAN : No hormones added. 

DARKWICCAN & LEAH : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : No…

LARAGH : No…

DARKWICCAN : No added hormones. Just the ones they come with.

LARAGH : Nope. Yup. 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah.

LARAGH : No added colors. No artificial colors.

DARKWICCAN : Nope. Nope.

LARAGH : Tons of artificial sweeteners, though! So much arti… 

DARKWICCAN : Yes. Yes. Yeah, that’s true.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

ALL : [Laugh]

DELAYNE : I don’t know, your Twit-fics aren’t exactly the fluffiest.

LEAH : That’s true.

DARKWICCAN : I don’t think they’re sweet. No. No.

LEAH : That’s true. That’s why it’s artificial! It’s not...

ALL : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : And you may end up, well, no, I’m not gonna… cut that out.

DELAYNE & LEAH: [make grunt noises as if to say “No, don’t say it.”]

DARKWICCAN : Uh…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : So… so 2019, September 2019 was the last Twitter fic you posted.

LEAH : Mmmhmm.

DELAYNE : Um, actually, November.

LEAH : Was it?

DARKWICCAN : Is it?

DELAYNE : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : Was it?

DELAYNE : I wrote… I have… I have the list. Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : I stand corrected by my wonderful co-host.

DELAYNE : The… the routine and ritual being disrupted.

LEAH : Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

DARKWICCAN : Ok. 

DELAYNE : Was November.

DARKWICCAN : My bad. Thank you for the correction. Do… So… so, it’s been a minute. Do you think this is a medium you’re gonna return to once the show starts running again? Or ever?

LEAH : I… Never say never. Um, one of them, well, my first one was posted during the show. It was, like, very early in the third season, um, but, yeah, no, I won’t say no, but I’ve… I don’t know. I really, truly don’t know. Um…

DELAYNE : The muse brings them when the muse brings them.

LEAH : Truly. That… exactly. Um, but, I’ve really… It was not my intention to, like, start, like, “I’m gonna write a fic that’s fit for Twitter.” Like, that’s not how this whole thing started. It’s, like, I had this image for, like, my first Twit-fic, which is… I think is about the, uh, Nicole being afraid of heights. Um, like, I had this image in my mind and it started as, like, a little head-canon, like, a one or two line head-canon and then, like, I sat for a minute with that and then all of a sudden, like, this narrative came out and I was like, “Oh. I want to write this,” but it wasn’t a full fic. It was just, yeah, like, these little moments, these smaller parts of the story and, um, it kind of came from that and then obviously a couple other, um, fics came from that. And, for me, Twit-fics, um, are short. They should be short. Like, you don’t want them to be a hundred tweets long ‘cause then it’s just… Which, just, put it on ao3! 

DARKWICCAN : Yeah.

LEAH : If you’re gonna have…

DARKWICCAN & DELAYNE : [Laugh]

LEAH : like, two thousand…

DELAYNE : A full story.

LEAH : Yeah. If you’re gonna have, like, two-thousand words, like, just put it on ao3. Um…

DELAYNE : [Laughs] And the link on Twitter.

LEAH : Yeah. And the… Yeah, exactly. Um, but, it’s been a really interesting and fun medium to, uh… to practice with and an exercise in, like, um… That really forces you to look at, like, what the bare essentials of your story are. Um, and stories can be moments, they don’t have to be these big, um, sagas or escapades. Um, and I think, um, doing that in, you know, less than two-hundred words - that might be a little on the low ball side, but, um… but doing that in a shorter manner has been really interesting, um, and I’ve… and I’ve not… it’s not like I haven’t written other stuff alongside the Twit-fics, like, I have. I’ve put stuff on ao3, I’ve done the Twitter fics.

DARKWICCAN : Mmmhmm.

LEAH : But it was, you know, for these it was kind of a… thinking about, like, ok, I have this story I wanna tell, this moment I wanna explore, what’s the best way to do that. Do I do it in, like, a full fic, or do it in a couple of tweets? And that’s been fun. It’s been, really, a cool writing, um, exercise because when I get the full, um, free range on, like, fic writing, I am like a writer who doesn’t shut up. Like, I will keep writing and writing and writing. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

LEAH : So, this has [inaudible 33:24] been fun and interesting for me to kind of reign it in again. Like, and trying to figure out…

DELAYNE : Keep yourself contained?

LEAH : Yeah. But still…

DARKWICCAN : Or just…

LEAH : figure out how to… how to, uh, deliver the emotional goods [laughs].

DARKWICCAN : So… so, what you’re saying is, when it comes to writing Twitter fics, you just look for the bare necessities. 

LEAH : Mmm.

DARKWICCAN : Those simple bare necessities.

LEAH : Mmmhmm.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : You… You know, forget about your worries and your strife. Just…

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : the bare necessities. 

LEAH : For those of you playing along at home, if you had “‘Bare Necessities’ Referenced” on your EFA Twitter… EFA Podcast bingo card, [tongue click] there you go.

DARKWICCAN & DELAYNE : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Hey, listen, it brings the bare necessities of life.

DELAYNE : The free square is actually just “Delayne Giggles”

LEAH : Yup.

DARKWICCAN : Yeah.

ALL : [Laugh]

LEAH : That’s five spots on the bingo card.

DELAYNE : ‘Cause that’s guaranteed. 

DARKWICCAN : That’s the drinking game.

LEAH : Yup. 

DELAYNE : What?

DARKWICCAN : The drinking game is the giggles. Which, I’m surprised more people haven’t died from alcohol poisoning. 

DELAYNE : Oh! No! Please don’t do that.

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Leah, this has been just wonderful chatting with you. Uh, I miss your face, my friend, um...

LEAH : I… I miss your face, too. I haven’t… I miss your face and I wanna see your baby. Like, really.

DARKWICCAN : I… Yes. 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : I mean, she’s awesome. 

LEAH : I know.

DARKWICCAN : I can’t… 

LEAH : She’s great.

DARKWICCAN : I mean… I’m…. I’m partial, of course.

LEAH : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : But, 

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : she’s [inaudible 34:48]

DELAYNE : I realized if I minimize my screens, on the background, I do have a collage of pictures that includes all three of us.

LEAH : Ohhh.

DARKWICCAN : Oh, very nice.

LEAH : Ohh.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Aww. That’s so cool.

DELAYNE : And quite a few other Pacific Northwest Earpers, but… 

LEAH : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Yes.

DELAYNE : [laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Aw.

DELAYNE : It’s very exciting.

DARKWICCAN : Well, before we let you go back to, uh, prepping for your next, uh, remote study lesson thingy…

LEAH : Mmmhmm. Mmmhmm. Yup. Exact… Yup.

DARKWICCAN : [Laughs] Distance learning session.

LEAH : Yup.

DARKWICCAN : Um, we do have one more question for you. 

LEAH : Yes.

DELAYNE : Alright, the dreaded question, then. You are stranded on a desert island and have only one fic to read. What is it?

LEAH : I would read, um, alesford’s or aliceford’s [ph], I think it’s alesford’s slash awol… a.k.a. awolnewt, um, their “Our Family of Choice,” uh, found family AU, um, that came out two summers ago, I believe now. Um… Yes.

DARKWICCAN : Yes. 

LEAH : It’s just this wonderful collection of, like, post-curse breaking, um, moments of, uh, this family, this weird demon-hunting family trying to figure out, again, life post-curse. And there’s lots of, um, WyNaught Bro-TP moments and Bro-TP moments between, uh, Alice and Nicole and Waverly’s daughter and it’s just… it’s wonderful. I really enjoy it. And I would read that all the time. Yes.

DARKWICCAN : Awesome.

DELAYNE : [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN : Cool. Well, I am thrilled to include that in our show notes. Uh, so people can check out…

LEAH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : “Our Family of Choice” 

LEAH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : by Alesford a.k.a. Awolnewt… 

LEAH : Mmmhmm.

DARKWICCAN : on the tweets. Um, speaking of Twitter, it has been so much fun chatting with you about your Twitter fics.

LEAH : Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Uh, Leah, where can our listeners find you on the Twitters?

LEAH : On the Twitters you can find me @TeachEarp_. So “Teach” like “teach”. And then Earp. Underscore. [Laughs]

DARKWICCAN & DELAYNE : [Laugh]

LEAH : TeachEarp.

DARKWICCAN : Teach like teach. Earp like Earp.

DARKWICCAN & LEAH : And then underscore.

DARKWICCAN : Like?

LEAH : Underscore.

DARKWICCAN : Underscore.

DELAYNE : Like underscore [laughs]

LEAH : Yup. Yeah.

DARKWICCAN : Ok.

ALL : [Laugh]

LEAH : For those…

DARKWICCAN : Alrighty.

LEAH : who didn’t get that.

ALL : [Laugh]

DARKWICCAN : Oh, man. Well, I look forward to being able to see you in fa… in person… your face in person even if it’s half covered by a mask, uh… 

LEAH : Yes. Yes. Same.

DARKWICCAN : Hopefully we can make that happen… 

LEAH : Yes.

DARKWICCAN : at some point over the summer.

LEAH : Yes. 

DARKWICCAN : Uh, in the meantime, friend, be well, be safe, and, uh, we’ll talk to you on Twitter!

LEAH : Alright. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate you inviting me on here. Um, this was a lot of fun.

  
  
  


MUSIC: Don’t Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Maddigan

  
  


DARKWICCAN: And that's all for this episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Thanks for joining us.

Tremendous thanks to Leah for chatting with us about her work!

Thanks also to our announcer Byron Tidwell for our intro.

Background music for the episode was: 

A Proper Story by Darren Korb, Vagrant Song (Northwest) by Ryan Ike, The Typewriter by Leroy Anderson and the outro music is Don't Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Madigan

If you have questions or comments for the podcast you can find us on Twitter at E-F-A underscore Podcast and on Facebook at E-F-A Podcast. 

And you can find all of our episodes, old and new, at our website E-F-A Podcast dot com.

And if you're listening on iTunes, please take a moment to rate and review our show.

Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you'll join us again next time for another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Until then, READ MORE FIC!

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Episodes post Mondays at 8am PST
> 
> Visit our Website http://efapodcast.com/ for all episodes old and new!
> 
> Follow us on Twitter: @efa_podcast
> 
> And on Facebook: facebook.com/EFAPodcast


	15. Episode 4x15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So... about episode 4x15...

So... sometimes things happen and episodes get lost.

Oops.

Maybe we'll find it... someday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Episodes post Mondays at 8am PST
> 
> Visit our Website http://efapodcast.com/ for all episodes old and new!
> 
> Follow us on Twitter: @efa_podcast
> 
> And on Facebook: facebook.com/EFAPodcast


	16. Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This week DW, Delayne and Laragh chat with the most unusual author they have ever had on the show! But not before throwing down a friendly challenge.

[Click HERE to Listen!](http://efapodcast.com/domo-arigato-mr-roboto)

Read the fics!

####  [The Horse Before the Kiss](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20972723) by [Wayhaughtficbot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseclaws/pseuds/gooseclaws)

####  [A Little Bit of Dirt for Nicole](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22040818) by Wayhaughtficbot

####  [The Way to a Minimum of Joy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23708515) by [Wayhaughtficbot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseclaws/pseuds/gooseclaws)

Episode artwork by Chantal Zeegers

Come the singularity, Ficbot will beam ['Wishin' and Hopin' by Bootsncatz'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12713403) into everyone's minds. 

Episode transcript by Edin-Earper

EFA Episode 416- Domo Arigato Mr Roboto

[ph] – Indicates preceding word has been spelled phonetically

[sic] – Indicates preceding word has been transcribed verbatim

MUSIC : Write My Story by Olly Anna

ANNOUNCER GUY : You've tuned in to the Earp Fiction Addiction, a fan podcast all about  _ Wynonna Earp _ fanfiction. Join our intrepid host DarkWiccan and Delayne as they dive deep into the sometimes sweet, sometimes spicy, and always varied world of fanfiction for the  _ Wynonna Earp _ fandom.

MUSIC : A Proper Story by Darren Korb

  
  


DARKWICCAN: Thanks Announcer Guy, and welcome everybody to another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction, the podcast dedicated entirely to Wynonna Earp fanfiction, I am your host Darkwiccan, and with me, adjusting their antennae and tuning in to the AM feed is my wonderful co-host here in the United States...

DELAYNE: Hi it’s Delayne! (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: And making sure that all her knobs are in the appropriate position, is my friend from Ireland…

LARAGH: Hi it’s... (laughs) hmm, you threw me! Hi it’s Laragh! 

ALL: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs) S-I-Well… I mean, you know (laughs) I just realised, that the term “knob” means something different in the UK parlance than it does in the United States...

DELAYNE and LARAGH: (Laughs)

ALL: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Off to a great start! (Laughs) Anyway, welcome everybody! (Laughs) [CONTENT CENSORED. PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT] Um, yeah so that’s there, uhh, anything else going on? Um...oh QFX Con just happened, as of the recording date of this episode, uh, and I...interviewed a few people you may be familiar with! Um, as part of the Wynonna Earp panel-that was a lot of fun!

DELAYNE: Yes.

DARKWICCAN: And of course we also did the fanfic panel, where for the first time, I interviewed uh-authors from other fandoms. (Phew..)

DELAYNE: How was that?

DARKWICCAN: So that was- 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: It was great! It was really great! I encourage everybody to er, hop over to QFX CloudCon er, to find links to those er-thingss, or just go search on YouTube, they’re being posted on YouTube so you can find them there. Uh, so that was a-a jolly good time had by all. Um, anything else happening? Uh, let’s see...oooh there was a trailer for our favourite shit-show!

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: That’s right, Wynonna Earp is officially coming back! We have our legally binding trailer out, uh, it is uh, July 26th at 10pm, that is a Sunday - Sundays are the new Fridays, I’m so excited to tune in with my-with my fellow Earpers and enjoy the amazing shit-show that it will be. Uh, what did you all think of the trailer?

LARAGH:Oof-hoof. 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

LARAGH: We need to remember that this is for like, six episodes right? Or, is it six?

DARKWICCAN: Yes 

LARAGH: Like, oh my god…

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs) It’s a lot! 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

LARAGH: It’s a lot..erm...yeah

DELAYNE: I don’t even think I have fully processed it, honestly (laughs) I know people have gone through, and like, analysed every single frame at this point, but it’s still like, processing in my brain. (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, I...I have actually watched it at least...I’m gonna say a dozen times at this point, both in regular speed and slow motion, trying to catch every detail. I still haven’t caught every little thing, um, and...I am...soooo excited (laughs) I just-how-I mean obviously we know from history that Emily and the writing team are...amazingly good at packing a whole lot of story into not a lot of time, I just hope...I think the Earpers are all going to have to invest in our own breathing apparatuses because we’re going to be out of breath at the end of every episode, there’s just no way we’re going to be able to keep up. Just, it’s going to be our cardio, is watching (laughs) these episodes. 

DELAYNE: (Laughs) I mean, I could use some cardio, so that’s fine. (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: I mean, me too, who doesn’t? Right?

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

LARAGH: Yeah. Any cardio.

DARKWICCAN: Right? (Laughs) And I’m looking forward to seeing what the drinking game is thi-this season as well.

LARAGH: I used to-it was like, the M&M game for me, ‘cos I don’t drink, but... (laughs) 

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, well me too, I’m-I’m still nursing so I won’t be drinking, but it’s going to be a treat to see… (Laughs) Sorry, I’m just-I’m still like, just, well I’m with-I’m with you Delayne, I-I-I’m still processing it, it’s just-it’s sooo much. 

DELAYNE: Yeah we’re-we’re just-we’re getting back into all of it, and a lot happening all at once in the-in the, you know, the online cons, and it’s like, I just…

LARAGH: And it’s been a long time!

DELAYNE: -processed any-Yeah right! Being without for so long, and then a bunch all at once... 

LARAGH: It’s like when you don’t eat for too long-

DARKWICCAN: Right!

LARAGH: -and then you eat too much and you get really sick-it’s like “woah” (laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

LARAGH: I have to-I have to process this (laughs) there’s too much!

DELAYNE: (Laughs) I have binged on Wynonna Earp, and I need a moment to sit with it (laughs) 

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs) Yes exactly, let it settle...too much-not tryptophan-what’s the opposite of tryptophan? (Laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs) 

DARKWICCAN: Ketamine? I don’t know...(Laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Something along the adrenaline line, like you said, cause we’re gonna go into cardio... (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Yeah. (Laughs) Oh my goodness, okay, well, let’s-let’s shift gears here, uh-uh-and start chatting about, uh, the stories that we’re discussing today. Uh, little different-little different today, we have an unusual author-

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: -uh, that we’re featuring today, um, I would say this is the...the first author we’ve had that I...and I mean this in, well not a complimentary way, but more I guess, a neutral factual way...uh, this is our first heartless author…

ALL: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Because they literally don’t have a heart, because it’s a bot! We’re gonna be talking about the Ficbot-the WayHaught Ficbot, and the stories that they have introduced into the canon of fandom fanworks. Um, completely unique and unlike, well that’s not true, that’s not completely unique...entirely derivative and based off of other stories- (laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs) uh, by [unclear] others, but put together in such an interesting way…

LARAGH: Indeed.

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Indeed. Uh, when the Fic-so the Ficbot was born of the author Gooseclaws, er, who came up with the idea by all of the other kind of, bots, that we’ve seen sort of floating around, especially Twitter, social media, where they say-you know someone will say, they fed five hundred, um, Hollywood sci-fi scripts to a-um bot, and had it-and then had it write it’s own, and this is the result of that, kind of thing. And it’s always just-just gibberish... (Laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Uh… (Laughs) Th-that’s where this idea came from. And...soo, Gooseclaw’s has basically got several different funnels of fic types that they, you know, feed to individual bots. So it’s actually, Ficbot is made up of multiple bots-

DELAYNE: Oh ok.

DARKWICCAN: -uh, and-um, so there’s like, the-the space bot, and the western bot, and I think the high school AU bot... 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Uh, but, (laughs) and then there’s just kind of like the general “all of them mushed together” bot I think, and so, uh, the bots we’re talking about today, um, uh, are-uh... 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: ...the bots we’re talking about are the only ones that have been posted to AO3, uh, most of the time, uh, bots take posts to Twitter, err I think just because the format-because it’s short form, it is a little more, um-ah workable than trying to put together an actual full-length-

DELAYNE: Yeah… (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: -story *clears throat*

DELAYNE: It’s best, I think, that these be kept short, because the-uh, the ficbot definitely can get...out of sorts (laughs) pretty quick (laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Yes…yes...yeah, absolutely. Uh, in fact I-I want to throw down a challenge here, that-um is a challenge from my youth theatre days...uh, when I was, when I say youth theatre, I mean like, middle school. Um, there was a-uh-aaan acting class I-I took when I was that age, uh, where we did a number of, it was primarily focused on improv, and-but one of the games we played was a-was essentially a scripted game. And, you know those YouTube videos today, those “Try not to laugh” YouTube videos?....You can say no…

DELAYNE: …..Yes...we know… (Laughs) 

DARKWICCAN: Okay, so there’s a-there’s kind of a popular thing on YouTube called “Try not to laugh” where, um, a bunch of funny...uh, you know, videos will be cut together and then they’ll sit a person down in front of a little laptop with a headset on and basically they have-the videos are like eight to ten minutes long and they have to not laugh, and sometimes there’s a prize at the end, and sometimes the prize is just knowing that you didn’t laugh, I don’t know. Uh, but generally people just cannot not laugh, um, a-and so the-the game we played when I was a-in-in-you know, like, I don’t know, twelve years old in a theatre class, was Newscaster. And the-our instructor, uh, her name was Emily, she would print off um, actual news stories that were just ridiculous, like the most ridiculous…

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Like the ones that usually start with “Florida man…”? (Laughs)

LARAGH: Right (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, well...Yeah, most-I think most of the stuff she had came from Australian news, if I recall correctly (laughs) they were usually just kind of short, like, uh...five paragraph, you know, li-little blurbs from like, a-Australian newspapers or something, I think is where she-where she found the weirdest stuff. And um, the game was that er, you had to pretend you were a newscaster at a news desk, and you had to read this news out with absolute seriousness, and not laugh. 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: And, uh, if you-if you made it through without laughing you would get some rinky-dinky prize. Like it was never anything with real value, like a piece of candy or you know, really what it was is if you made it all the way through, you-you got the awe of your classmates.

LARAGH: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: So, each of these stories is between four and five hundred words, that’s not very much at all, I’d say that’s probably close to about five-five minutes, er, tops, um...I would like to challenge each of you-

LARAGH: Oh gosh 

DARKWICCAN: -and myself-

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: -to read one of these stories as we talk about them, well, read-read-read it and then talk about it, uh, and uh, and try not to laugh while you read it!

DELAYNE: That actually sounds hilarious. (Laughs)

LARAGH: Okay…

DARKWICCAN: Yeah (laughs) um, and to show what a good sport I am, I will start off, and I will start with ones-the one I think is the most impossible to get through... 

LARAGH: Okay…

DELAYNE: Uh, yeah, we appreciate that (laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Okay, *clears throat* so this is a-a treat for everybody, this is sort of a kind of an audio (laughs) audio-uh-radio theatre for you guys, uh… (Laughs) Not-not really, but, you know. Um, so, yeah, and the thing is, I’m already smiling so I can tell you right now this is not going to go well for me...yeah.

LARAGH: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Alright, let me get myself under control - serious face, serious face. 

LARAGH: Ok we’re listening. 

DARKWICCAN: Alright, *rolls tongue* … (laughs) Red leather, yellow leather, red leather, yellow leather… okay. So this story is called “The Horse Before the Kiss”, this is the first story that BotFic posted via Gooseclaws’ AO3, um, and it is a little less than five hundred words. The summary is:  Nicole is unsure where she stands with Waverly. Waverly tries to make things clearer. Absolutely nothing makes sense.

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Here we go. (Laughs) Oh god this is not gonna go well, I can already feel it-okay. *Clears throat*.... (Laughs) I can’t even get the first phrase out-here we go. 

Nineteen thirteen. 

Nicole Haught stood on a wagon with Wynonna. She thought about selling bricks for a living. "You know what Waverly might appreciate?" she said. "Six beers."

Wynonna shook her entire existence. She could just let Nicole fumble over heart stuff, but sometimes she got all authoritative. "Nicole, will you walk Waverly home every other week?"

The redhead groaned and kicked another boulder. She thought Champ Hardy was strutting around like an idiot. But what exactly he had to say was worth fightin’ over. "You look foolish," she said.

They both huddled together under the wagon. Waverly Earp stood outside naked.

"Why are you related to her?" asked Nicole.

"I am flattered," said Wynonna. "But Waverly looks way more freaky."

Waverly sighed laboriously and looked directly into their little house. "Since I am never going to get together with Champ, how good are you at breathing?"

LARAGH: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: "I am stoked to breathe," said Nicole. She wanted to kiss Waverly hard. Probably where she secretly relished it.

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: This response tangled in Waverly's eyes. They fluttered pathetically like a butterfly. 

DELAYNE: (laughs)

DARKWICCAN: She figuratively - (Laughs) Oh no - She figuratively opened another planet.

DELAYNE and LARAGH: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Nicole, indicating to Waverly that she hadn't vacuumed Nedley's face, darted nervously about-around the property. She reveled in confrontation. With a whistling stroke, she bloodied her own mouth.

"What the horse?" said Waverly. 

LARAGH: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: She didn't know why Nicole was being so dumb.

Wynonna shrugged and laid down-laid-laid down on over one hundred eighty square napkins. (Laughs)

DELAYNE and LARAGH: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs) I just lost! Okay, let me try to get through it - almost done here, almost done. 

"Waverly, tell her to knock it off and then go see your mother."

"I killed her," said Waverly.

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: "Oh," said Wynonna. "Well, sis, you deserve 24/7 hot tongue teasing."

Waverly giggled and awkwardly shifted under Nicole's flannel. Nicole gave her the shirt with a wink. Waverly liked Nicole's hands. 

LARAGH: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: They barely contained any lies.

"Nicole, will you please enjoy this time with me?" she said excitedly.

Nicole calmed down, momentarily forgetting which buttons restrained her pants. 

ALL: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: She immersed herself in unfortunate hazel eyes.

"I think I should take your uber driver and ride off into the darkness now," said Wynonna, burying herself in dogs. -(Laughs)- The dogs -(Laughs)- hated ranch floorplans. 

ALL: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: The dogs hated ranch floorplans. -(Laughs) Doesn’t everybody? - 

The uber driver sucked on his teeth and broke free of gravity. Mars was pretty damn pleased to meet them.

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Goodbyes really got to Waverly. She didn't remember how to handle being gay. So Nicole ushered Waverly into her arms and kissed her senseless. "Keep doing this," said Waverly.

Nicole swallowed ashes. It felt strange and she shook herself for neglecting to kiss her way down Waverly's quads. She pulled out a handful of aspirin and then shouted, "you heard stories of unnatural night -(Laughs)- You heard stories of unnatural night baking! I am not all right!"

LARAGH: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Waverly whacked Nicole with a big lesbian leg. -(Laughs)- She thought about chickens. -(Laughs)- Chickens exploded.

ALL: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: "Wow," said Nicole, -(Laughs)- seeing two astronauts instead of her girlfriend. "I asked for that. "

"You are very pretty and ridiculous," said Waverly. "Will we get married already?"

Nicole waited until she realized she was really willing. "You know what? We deserve something like that." THE END

ALL: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: I SO lost! I lost so hard, I knew I wasn’t gonna make it through but I didn’t know I was gonna break that early! (Laughs) 

ALL: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Whoo! So, a lot to unpack there…

DELAYNE and LARAGH: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Uh…(Laughs) Uh-apparently-apparently-(Laughs) 

ALL: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: -ap-apparently….Nicole...Wait (laughs)... apparently Waverly has some sort of telekinetic ability to explode fowl…

LARAGH: (Laughs) Okay...just thinking about them.

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: I mean, the-a-the reference fic for exploding chickens and astronauts…(Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Yeah (laughs)

LARAGH: Oh my god, there’s just so many good…

DELAYNE: (Laughs) But the a-I-the most epic is “What the horse?”

DARKWICCAN: “What the horse?” Yeah. (Laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Especially since someone…(laughs)

LARAGH: The thing is, I-I could legit see Waverly saying that! (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Yeah so could I!! (Laughs)

DELAYNE: No it’s Nicole saying “What the horse?”

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, yeah it is!

LARAGH: Oh it is!! 

DARKWICCAN: Yeah it is, you’re right.

DELAYNE: As well...it’s Nicole saying it in the picture but yeah it’s apparently Waverly saying it in the fic (laughs) I didn’t realise! (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: I can see- (Laughs) Oh my face! 

LARAGH: Oh my god. 

DARKWICCAN: Okay, alright, so the next story is, uh, “A Little Bit of Dirt for Nicole”. Who wants this one, Laragh? Delayne?

DELAYNE: Uhhhhhhh

LARAGH: Do you want it Delayne?

DELAYNE: Alright I’ll go next (laughs)

LARAGH: Okay

DARKWICCAN: Okay. Uh, so while you’re preparing yourself, I will-uh once again say this is “A Little Bit of Dirt for Nicole”, the summary is “ Waverly Earp just wants Nicole to make an honest woman out of her. Nicole has more crises than is strictly healthy. Wynonna is Wynonna. ” Also known as, they made a bot read a bunch of  bunch of old west AU fics and wrote this. (Laughs) Monstrocity...sorry.

DELAYNE: (Laughs) “The bot is back, it's yeehaw themed, and I am not sorry in the least”

LARAGH: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: Alright. Nicole Haught probably deserved to get attached to a pile of dirty fingernails, Waverly thought. She looked at Nicole, who was trying to catch a baby cloud with her own blood, and shook a fist at the sight. Nicole looked up and began to hammer herself into the ground. -(Laughs)-

DARKWICCAN and LARAGH: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: "What the hell do you think you're doing, you sky fire?" shouted Waverly.

"I jus think I'd be good at awkward attempts at courting you," Nicole said shakily.

LARAGH: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: This was sex to Waverly, who had never seen a woman without her pants on. 

DARKWICCAN and LARAGH: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: She felt powerful winter pigs tightening their grip on the town. -(Laughs)-

"Nicole! " Wynonna said, shooting her guns in the air while she furiously stomped towards them. "I ain't tryin'a embarrass you but that red hair is disheveled and beautiful!" -(Laughs)-

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs)

Waverly could hardly bear to look at Nicole and her sister falling in love, so she mustered enough courage to turn into a full coffee cup. 

ALL: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: She was -(laughs)- she was going to leave Purgatory and go to New York, she decided.

But then, another spoonful of strong-jawed - sorry (laughs) it would help if I could read- 

DARKWICCAN:(Laughs)

DELAYNE: But then, another spoonful of strong-jawed man jumped out and scared her.

"You scumbag, get away from her," Nicole gritted out through clenched cucumbers.

DARKWICCAN and LARAGH: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: She took -(laughs)- she took her body over to the cowboy and began to trot all over him. He wasn't very keen on it. 

DARKWICCAN and LARAGH: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: When Nicole sat on his feet and straightened his skull, he gave up and congealed into a ball of yarn.-(Laughs)-

DARKWICCAN and LARAGH: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: Nicole felt dreadful and mischievous. She immediately cradled Waverly in her arms and kissed her senseless.

"I appreciate your moves," Waverly said gravely, "but you didn't remember to get undressed, cowboy." -(Laughs)-

DARKWICCAN and LARAGH: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: Nicole whispered against Waverly's ear. "I want you to marry me… if that's alright with you."

Wynonna growled and took Nicole's collar and pulled her down into a bathtub. "No way I'm letting you get my baby sister, Mr. Open Shirt Collar." -(Laughs)- 

DARKWICCAN and LARAGH: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: She injected her own thigh with Black Badge Division iron and then she was a horse. She was a real good horse.

ALL: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: Waverly responded to this by ripping her dress off and basically dragging Nicole into their home. "You are gonna make an honest woman of me, Nicole, or I'm going to badmouth cans of tomatoes."

ALL: (Laughs)

LARAGH: Oh my god.

DELAYNE: "You can't," said Nicole. "They're darlings and I will always protect them." She got naked and then she ran down the street to the saloon, shouting, "I'm a fucking mess!"

ALL: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: Waverly sighed dramatically but simultaneously floated after her. "She's fine, she's just pure evil right now," she said to the sheriff, who looked exasperated.

DARKWICCAN and LARAGH: (Laughs)

LARAGH: Oh my god.

DELAYNE: Nicole had already opened the door to the saloon and had decided to get herself up onto the barstool. She threw buckets of soup on Waverly. Waverly smiled at her.

"Don't you know how breathless you make me?" she said.

Nicole considered that. She bounced excitedly over to Waverly and stood in front of her. "Well that’s great-that’s a great relief. I love you too."

"Thank god," Waverly said smugly. "Can we please get outta here? I need to touch you and it won't be proper."

DARKWICCAN and LARAGH: (Laughs)

*Applause*

DARKWICCAN: Well done! Well done! That was...(Laughs)

DELAYNE: I definitely had to stop and take a few moments, oh my goddd (laughs)

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: It’s a whole different experience reading it out loud, I must say (laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Right? (Laughs) I feel bad for Wynonna considering she’s afraid of horses and then she turned into a real good one (laughs)

LARAGH: (Laughs) A real good one! (Laughs) Oh my god.

DARKWICCAN: Oh man, so yes that was, uh, the (laughs) I’m sure that you recognise a lot-a lot of things from a lot of very popular wild west AUs-

DELAYNE and LARAGH: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: -Of course the “ain’t proper” from You Made Me Love You…

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Uh…(laughs) sorry,can’t stop laughing... whoo.

DELAYNE: I need to touch you and it won’t be proper! 

ALL: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: That is just...such a great line!

ALL: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Alright! Okay, so the third story, uh, which you have no choice but to read, Laragh-

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Is The uh- The Way to a Minimum of Joy (laughs)

LARAGH: Oh my god.

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Ohhhh I forgot this is the explicit one, I’m sorry Laragh. (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs) 

LARAGH: Alright.

DARKWICCAN: Are you ok? I mean, no I’m serious…

LARAGH: Yup! No, I’m-I’m…

DARKWICCAN: Do you consent to read it?

LARAGH: Yup, I consent to read it, I-I probably won’t read it well, but I consent to read it- 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Okay.

LARAGH: -which is consistent with this kind of thing.

DARKWICCAN: Uh ok. Um, so the summary is, Nicole and Waverly get down to it. It's a disaster. Don't let write-let’s-don’t let bots write smut. No. Really. Bots should NOT write smut. Read at your own risk. (Laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs) 

LARAGH: Help.

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: (Laughs)

LARAGH: Oh my god.

DARKWICCAN: This is the shortest one though, this is the shortest one. 

LARAGH: Yeah, ok. Oh my god I’m gonna break before I even start. *Clears throat* 

Nicole watches as Waverly teases out a pair of soft cotton muscles from her room. 

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: (Laughs)

LARAGH: "You need to come quickly and efficiently," says Waverly.

"I don't come quickly, girl," Nicole says, and she pulls her pants down her hips. Grinding against the door, she feels herself start to see plenty of vague panties entwined in the middle of the kitchen.

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: (Laughs)

LARAGH: Waverly groans. "You're making this really hard now," she sighs, and her tongue darts back and forth in her mouth. Absently, she presses her hand hard against her lips and sucks on her phone. 

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: (Laughs)

LARAGH: Nicole thinks that this woman knows exactly what she needs. Her body aglow in glorious sparks, Nicole leans forward and slips her lips across Waverly's. Waverly responds like a big gas stove. She runs her fingers over her stomach, stopping just short of her panties. It's so fucking intimate. Nicole can almost feel her own hand drifting across glorious sexy muscles. She hums and growls and rolls over to Waverly. "Just tell me how lesbians do it baby," she says.

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: (Laughs)

LARAGH: Waverl-Waverly responds with two unbelievable nipples hardening visibly. 

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: (Laughs)

LARAGH: "Oh god, nicole. I thrust like a bullet and we should get closer." 

Nicole grins. Without preamble she squawks, sitting on top of the bed and getting changed into herself, but naked. "You need to take off that bra," she says, and Waverly complies and fucking slides on top of Nicole. 

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: (Laughs)

LARAGH: She's trembling under Nicole's very incredible hands and Nicole feels Waverly's core throbbing in frustration. 

"I love wet sounds," Nicole whispers. 

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: (Laughs)

LARAGH: She manages not to touch herself and rolls over onto Waverly. "Hmmm," she announces. "I imagine you're going to take my fingers, now."

Waverly breathily unbuttons her voice and pulls Nicole's very romantic undershirt under her jawline. Nicole lets her fingers curl into Waverly. They kiss and Waverly aches (arches) into Nicole's keen ears. 

"Fuck trailers," Waverly shouts. 

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: (Laughs)

LARAGH: "...Darlin you really don't have to do that while we're glistening," Nicole says as she sinks deeper. Waverly completely disappears. She is still whimpering but she is not a being. Nicole doesn't stop and she moans. 

Suddenly Waverly is there, bracing her hands over her head, and she comes, and Nicole watches and she has never felt prouder. "You're the only person I wanna eat," she announces brightly, exhausted.

Waverly hums, curving herself against Nicole like a pancake. "You fuck like a deeply romantic graveyard." 

They drift to sleep in each other's arms. 

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Laragh wins!! Laragh wins!!

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: You did-you may have had the ti-the tiniest chuckle, but you really didn’t break! Good job!!

DELAYNE: That was Fucking Epic Laragh! You win the round for sure, oh my god! 

ALL: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Woowww!

DELAYNE: Oh she showed us up didn’t she! (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Yes she did!! Well done, oh my gosh! (Laughs) The imagery, good lord, okay…

DELAYNE: (Laughs) 

LARAGH: Oh my god you…No...

DARKWICCAN: Well there’s not really much to...dive into there…

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: I mean it’s just-it’s just…

DELAYNE: If you dive in you might disappear, so be careful (laughs)

LARAGH: Yeah (laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, no you-you’ll probably injure yourself because you’re not gonna go very far (laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs) This is so interesting because in talking about the FicBot’s fics, we kinda-we have to look to the fics that the bot was fed, in order to create these fics, right?

LARAGH: Right, yeah.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, so…

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs) Uh, so, uh, this-this was um, uh, the source-the source for this uh-fic, was  [ Lazy Sundays ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20924261/chapters/49743146) ,  [ Keep Your Pants O ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16514855) n,  [ Never Stop ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11488683) ,  [ The First Step ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7410073) and a selection from Bootsncatz fic -  [ Why'd You Come In Here (Lookin' Like That) ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14923691/chapters/36280326) . Uh, woof.

ALL: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Such imagery here, um the-the idea of Waverly ceasing to…

LARAGH: Exist, yeah… (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN and DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Basically becoming one with the Cosmos- (Laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs) 

DARKWICCAN: And also having a firm, firm dislike of trailers.

ALL: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: I don’t know-I don’t know y’all, is there anything we can really say, excep-I….We have set ourselves a challenge today…

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: To interview…

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: A-a robot (laughs) um, and I-I think we’re gonna succeed, it may be one of our shorter interviews because I seriously doubt that uh-the Ficbot is going to go off onto wild tangents, I don’t know, we’ll see....

DELAYNE: (Laughs) 

DARKWICCAN: Uhh...but yeah maybe we should wrap this up and-and get to that and see what happens.

DELAYNE and LARAGH: (Laughs)

LARAGH: I...uh...

DELAYNE: I uh, look forward…

LARAGH: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Ok, so before we do that (laughs) as we-as we attempt to recover, I’m gonna be drinking a big glass of water here, uh, *clears throat* [CONTENT CENSORED. PLEASE VISIT EFAPODCAST.COM FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT.]

Seg 2

MUSIC: Popcorn by Gershon Kingsley

DARKWICCAN: And welcome back everybody to the Earp Fiction Addiction, the podcast dedicated entirely to Wynonna Earp fanfiction. I am your host Darkwiccan and with me is my wonderful co-host from the western United States…

DELAYNE: Hi it’s Delayne!

DARKWICCAN: And my other delightful co-host from all the way over in Ireland…

LARAGH/FT: Fuck trailers!

ALL: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Have you changed your name?

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

LARAGH/FT: Yes I have in solidarity.

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs) Ok so-ok, alright, I’m gonna-I’m gonna call you FT for short is that ok? (Laughs)

LARAGH/FT: Ok DW

DELAYNE and DARKWICCAN: (Laughs)

DELAYNE: Oooh god…

DARKWICCAN: Ahh man...Well,I’m sure that Ficbot appreciates the homage, uh, and yes that’s right, joining the chat with us in some capacity is (laughs) the author, or-or something, of the fics that we actually read aloud in the previous segment, uh, the one of a kind and yet entirely derivative Ficbot. Ficbot, welcome to the show! 

FICBOT: Thanks for having me say so many different things like a groundhog. This is a great episode... I think that it is going to be more emotional than anything else.

DELAYNE: (Laughs) 

DARKWICCAN: Yeah I can definitely say that uh, it’s going to be, um, it’s gonna be something. (Laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Some kind of emotion for sure (laughs).

LARAGH/FT: Yeah.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah. Uh I-I gotta say that I do appreciate you taking time out of your, er what I assume to be, busy schedule to chat with us today.

FICBOT: Yeah, I guess I don't actually know how long time and stuff is. [Laughs-Hahahahaha]

ALL: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: I mean, what is time to anyone really, it’s a concept. 

LARAGH/FT: Yeah, it’s-it’s a [theory really, I mean... so uh Ficbot, out of curiosity, do you use pronouns? 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Er that is a good question Laragh! We want to be inclusive here. I must confess I assumed you were literally made up of binary code, er but my ignorance might be showing.

FICBOT: No. [ laughter]. I mean... I have them, but they're not really my favorite, if that makes sense. 

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Well (laughs) yes actually! (Laughs) There you go!

DARKWICCAN: That does make sense.

DELAYNE: I'm going to steal one of DW's usual questions and ask you how you got started writing fanfiction.

FICBOT: Oh boy, nice try, Delayne. I can't tell you. I would have to immediately provide you guys with high school relationships. Uh … you don't want that. 

DELAYNE: (Laughs) I don't know why, but that's not the answer I expected. (Laughs)

LARAGH/FT: Yeah that's the great thing about Ficbot. Expect the unexpected.

DARKWICCAN: (Laughs) That’s so true, er-er Ficbot you've got quite a few works under your belt so far. Any sign of slowing down, er, would you say your muse is on a roll?

FICBOT: Yeah! Tag that. "And then suddenly Nicole Haught listened to the night, and Waverly felt like a discovery was going to happen."

DARKWICCAN: We-ok! Uh...just already-just inspired to write a story right here on the podcast that’s kinda cool! (Laughs) Um, well I just know that I-I look forward to reading your work, everytime you post. Whether it's on Twitter or AO3. 

FICBOT: Oh, jeez louise, I feel like the biggest birds, DW. [ Laughter]. I'm so grateful and I am slightly aware that you captured a little orange tabby. Please don't get it to write fic. 

DARKWICCAN: Oh...to write a fic? O-ok, I will not allow that fictitious orange tabby to (laughs) to write a fic. Lets… (laughs) Why don’t we-why don’t we er, dive into uh-a few questions for ya here. Um, or really more right about your work, uh...When you sit down to write, assuming you sit, do you already have an idea of the story you'd like to tell? Or does it come to you more, er, for want of a better phrase, organically?

FICBOT: OK, totally. So I kinda have a special fic writing process where I deny that Nicole even... You know, that she isn't really… like, real. Excellent storytelling. I think Waverly just reminds me of a seaplane and then I guess I go from there. Okay? As I write about Waverly, I feel like Nicole needs to be together with her, and she basically starts writing herself. 

DELAYNE: I mean, that sounds like uh, other authors actually! (Laughs) We’ve heard that response before, in a way…

DARKWICCAN: Yes.

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Yeah that-that’s not, undifferent really, from what we’ve heard from other authors (laughs) um, maybe the thing about she needs to be a seaplane, or Waverly’s a seaplane, that’s new, definitely a new observation I haven’t thought of. Um, what do you say to those who have called your work derivative of more established authors?

FICBOT: They are humans. They don't have the ability to get the heart of my fics. [ laughter ] Whoops. Sorry, I forgot that you're also people. 

ALL: (Laughs)

LARAGH/FT: Yeah, yeah, that happens to us a lot…

DARKWICCAN: Uh yeah, that-that happens all the time...Yeah we’ll let it slide, it’s totally-it’s totally fine, I mean you’re-you know... 

LARAGH/FT: We live in a very heteronormative society, so....

DARKWICCAN: Uh yeah... a very organic, uh, society, as well, so I can see you’re part of a marginalised community, of robots, so um, you know, I-it-I get it.

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Um...can we nickname you “the Insult-Bot”? (Laughs)

LARAGH/FT: (Laughs) Shade-bot.

DELAYNE: (Laughs) *Clears throat* I guess it’s my turn? (Laughs) So Ficbot, besides WayHaught, where do you get your inspiration as an author?

FICBOT: Um I guess I would say my mom, or maybe three chickens I know. I love to imagine that those weirdos are in my code, they are spicy little liars. Um... and honestly, Nicole and Waverly are pretty good for ideas! I know you know what I mean. 

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Indeed I do! (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Uh…

LARAGH/FT: Oh yeah.

DARKWICCAN: Yeah actually I uh, ok, can I...can you tell me more about the three chickens? (Laughs) I’m curious!

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

FICBOT: Oh yeah! Well... maybe. They are younger than Nedley. Their heads are wonderfully suspicious. And um, my girlfriend, Shae, can converse with them.

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Yeah we did not know that about Shae!

LARAGH/FT: We didn’t know that about Shae! (Laughs) That’s how she fits into Purgatory - she’s a chicken speaker!

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

LARAGH/FT: She’s like the-this chicken speaking Parseltongue.

DARKWICCAN: There you go!! (Laughs) Something-something we didn’t know before! Uhh...and I-I guess I shouldn’t-you know it’s rude of me to be surprised that er-that you have a partner, but again I’m being-I’m being-I’m making, um, organic assumptions, er-and er I-I really (laughs) I need to work on myself (laughs).

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Umm, yes you bring a-some excellent points DW, um on-on our biases against, uh, bots, so...keep that in mind as well! So Ficbot, what determines whether you post a story to Twitter or AO3?

FICBOT: Uh, it really is a super neat process. I write it and then I ask Waverly. She doesn't know, she never ever does. If I'm a cancer, I go with the fic author archive. And if I'm a Northern Alabama pigeon, ya know, I make twitter drive. 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

LARAGH/FT: I’ve heard that about you, Alabama pigeon…

DARKWICCAN: Yeah...I’ve (laughs) well the pidge-pigeons are excellent um, you know, resources, and also muses as we know, uh, from other authors in the fandom, so-so that makes sense, um also Twitter being inspired by a bird, it would make sense that if you were a bird you would be more inclined…

LARAGH/FT: Right. It’s-it’s a familiar-familiar...I can’t think of the word.

DARKWICCAN: Yes.

DELAYNE: (Laughs) 

DARKWICCAN: It’s a-it’s a comfort zone, it’s a safer space I guess, yeah-yeah yeah.

LARAGH/FT: A comfort zone.

DELAYNE: Birds flock to other birds.

LARAGH/FT: Birds, yeah, birds do like birds...um… double entendre there...

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: *Badum-shh* Yeah no that was a good one, that was a good one, I’m there, I’m picking up what you’re putting down, picking up what you’re putting down.

DELAYNE: (Laughs) 

LARAGH/FT: (Laughs) I knew you-I knew you would DW.

DELAYNE: Don’t be a (unclear)...thanks for the point in the right direction (laughs)

ALL: (Laughs)

LARAGH/FT: Uh, Ficbot, do you find the short story format makes you better able to tell a memorable tale? 

FICBOT: So the answer is actually dipped in mosquitos. Because Nicole needs time to see what would happen if she was all alone. She needs to protect Waverly and she thinks that the only way to do that is to run back to the desert and the fire where they first started to develop something important. And I don't want her to be alone for that long. So... uh, definitely.

DELAYNE: (Laughs) 

DARKWICCAN: As, as-

LARAGH/FT: Yeah, yeah...that’s important.

DARKWICCAN: -coherent an answer as I think uh, we’ve-rr-we’re gonna get, um do you find-Ficbot do you find most answers are dipped in mosquitoes?

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

FICBOT: no. Only when they are going to be flying around like singing plants.

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Of course, how-how silly of me...yeah.

LARAGH/FT: That is-that-that is a concern…

DARKWICCAN: Should have known.

DELAYNE: I-I feel like, uh, Ficbot had to, uh, give a nod to botanist Delayne, and that just makes me so proud (laughs).

DARKWICCAN: Yes.

LARAGH/FT: So Ficbot, do you think that Nicole’s feelings of protection towards Waverly are justified or is she over cautious? 

FICBOT: Nicole can't really think about the muskrat situation. But um, her character has to defend Waverly because she's like that, but she has to start asking what Waverly identifies as. So it's really both. It's ultimately a long character growth kind of thing.

LARAGH/FT: That’s surprisingly poignant. (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Yeah that was a surprisingly deep and poignant answer! (laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Um…

LARAGH/FT: Yeah

DELAYNE: Dipped in-dipped in just a wee bit of gibberish (laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Yeah 

LARAGH/FT: Well, gibberish or…

DARKWICCAN: But I-I-we-I got it though, right? 

DELAYNE: Yeah, right? That’s a...(Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: That was… (laughs)

LARAGH/FT: Wow

DARKWICCAN: Something to think about, for sure! 

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

LARAGH/FT: Uh yeah...So, um, touching on that, I guess, a little bit, uh, do you pull inspiration from the characters as individuals or as a couple?

FICBOT: Hang on a second. I have to think about this... I guess I'd say yes... [laughter]. Maybe I should start again. There's something so good about Wayhaught that I don't think I've experienced before. But I think it's probably related to Waverly being absolutely brilliant and Nicole being a lesbian god of swagger. I honestly think that those two special people are magnetic to each other and all of us Earpers. Also... bears. Remember those. 

DELAYNE: Earpers and bears (laughs)

LARAGH/FT: Earpers and bears, um, yeah, you know, we don’t normally have, many bears in our fandom, not that we are anti-bear-

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

LARAGH/FT:-but you know, I mean-I think-I don’t think either Jeremy or Robin would be described as such, um…

DARKWICCAN: no, they’re otters, but uh, yeah.

LARAGH/FT: But I mean, the-the bears are important...um, and we of course must remember them, so um, how central do you think they are to the narrative you’re trying to tell? 

FICBOT: What about them? I don't remember. Who told you? Laragh, I think that your personality is good, like a Christmas gift. 

LARAGH/FT: New Twitter bio!

DARWICCAN and DELAYNE: (Laughs)

LARAGH/FT: Going up there right now!

DARKWICCAN: Oh thank you so much for that Ficbot that is fantastic! I think also that’s a new t-shirt design, er, Laragh, that you need.

LARAGH/FT: Right, yes, absolutely

DARWICCAN and DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Well…

DELAYNE: New mask! (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Well, uh, Ficbot, this has been an informative conversation. I am, uh, so happy you’re able to join us today to talk about your writing process, um, and uh, I look forward to seeing what you, er, share with us in the future, uh but of course before we let you go, we have a-uh-a variation on our popular question for you. Uh, Delayne?

DELAYNE: (Laughs) Alright hopefully it’s, uh-alright hopefully it’s, uh, translated into something that really, you understand. Um, so Ficbot, when the singularity finally happens, what single fic do you intend to broadcast into the minds of the organics left behind?

FICBOT: Oh gosh, I don't wanna say just one. That's not right. I guess I have to, though. Okay... alright... I can do it. My favorite one is the sixties AU, “Wishin’ and Hopin’” by Bootsncatz. I love the jeans in that story.

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: Yeah, that story’s got-

LARAGH/FT: Same, I-hard-hard same.

DARKWICCAN: -some great jeans. Yes.

DELAYNE: (Laughs)

DARKWICCAN: That’s an excellent choice, uh, and I am more than happy to er, include that in-sorry I’m so thrown off, you guys (laughs)

DELAYNE: (Laughs) 

DARKWICCAN: I am more than happy to include a link to that story “Wishin’ and Hopin’” by bootsncatz, in the shownotes for this episode. Ficbot thank you so much for joining us today, and um, I will see you online!

FICBOT: Today, I have seen the true story of Nicole and Waverly. You have listened to me enough. Thank you very much, and I hope you can still take on Wynonna Earp when she comes to take your favorite pineapple.

  
  


MUSIC: Don’t Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Maddigan

DARKWICCAN: And that's all for this episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. 

Thanks for joining us.

Tremendous thanks to Gooseclaws for allowing ficbot to chat with us today!

  
  


Thanks also to our announcer Byron Tidwell for our intro. 

Background music for the episode was:

A Proper Story and In Case of Trouble by Darren Korb, Popcorn by Gershon Kingsley, 

and the outro music is Don't Deal with the Devil by Kristoffer Maddigan.

  
  


If you have questions or comments for the podcast you can find us on Twitter at E-F-A underscore Podcast and on Facebook at E-F-A Podcast. 

And you can find all of our episodes, old and new, at our website E-F-A Podcast dot com.

And if you're listening on iTunes, please take a moment to rate and review our show.

Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you'll join us again next time for another episode of the Earp Fiction Addiction. Until then, READ MORE FIC!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Episodes post Mondays at 8am PST
> 
> Visit our Website http://efapodcast.com/ for all episodes old and new!
> 
> Follow us on Twitter: @efa_podcast
> 
> And on Facebook: facebook.com/EFAPodcast

**Author's Note:**

> New Episodes post Mondays at 8am PST
> 
> Visit our Website http://efapodcast.com/ for all episodes old and new!
> 
> Follow us on Twitter: @efa_podcast
> 
> And on Facebook: facebook.com/EFAPodcast


End file.
